In former times all transactions in the sale and purchase of stock used to take place in 'Change Alley, or THE ALLEY, as it was commonly called. This was the centre of the excitement and bustle of the famous South Sea bubble in the year 1720. Afterwards these bargains came to be made in the room in the Bank of England buildings, called the Rotunda; and some business is still done here by a certain description of persons. Bargains in stock by the regular brokers, however, are now transacted in the building called the New Stock Exchange, at the upper end of Capel Court, which was erected by the Committee in 1804. Brokers and jobbers, who are not members of the Stock Exchange, assemble in the open court in front of the building. A jobber is a person whose business it is to accommodate buyers and sellers with the exact sums they want. The jobbers are, in general, possessed of considerable property in the funds.

Almost all transfers of stock are effected through the agency of brokers, all the more respectable of whom are members of the Stock Exchange, into which association they are elected annually by ballot. The Committee of the Stock Exchange is the governing body of the establishment, and consists of 21 members, elected by ballot. A broker acting for another party must be authorised to do so by a power of attorney granted by his principal. This warrant, which is on a stamp that costs 17. 18. 6d., may be so drawn as to empower the broker both to buy and sell stock, and also to receive the dividends for the person by whom he is commissioned. Many persons, however, who would not venture to sell or purchase stock except through the medium of a broker, are in the habit of calling at the Bank for their dividends themselves.

In the money-market, as in any other market, there are, of course, always one set of persons inclined to buy, and another to sell, the commodity dealt in, whatever may be its price at the moment. The very meaning of a market price is, a rate at which there are both buyers and sellers; it is a point up to which the value of the commodity is forced by the demand for it, but beyond which it cannot rise without the sale of the commodity being put a stop to altogether. This is the only price, properly so called; for a price at which there are no dealings is no price at all, for any practical end, and it matters not what may be its nominal amount-whether it be any particular sum, or a hundred or a thousand times as much. At whatever point, then, to which the price of stock is brought by this balance between the supply and the demand, if there be any business done in the article at all, there will be in the market both parties ready to buy, and other parties desirous to sell. The business of the broker consists in selecting the particular moment at which it is most advantageous to buy or sell. This, of course, he has to do by exercising his judgment both upon the probable movement of the price of the stocks, and upon the particular circumstances and exigencies of the case in which he acts.

When a bargain in stock has been arranged between two parties in the market, they must resort to the Bank or the South Sea House (according to the fund) for the ratification of their agreement and the actual transference of the stock. "For this purpose," to quote the detail of the forms as given by Dr. Hamilton, "the seller makes out a note in writing, which contains the name and designation of the seller and purchaser, and the sum and description of the stock to be transferred. He delivers this to the proper clerk,* and then fills up

* The letters of the alphabet are placed round the room, and the

a receipt, a printed form of which, with blanks, is obtained at the office. The clerk, in the mean time, examines the seller's accounts; and if he find him possessed of the stock proposed to be sold, he makes out the transfer. This is signed in the books by the seller, who delivers the receipt to the clerk; and upon the purchaser's signing his acceptance in the book, the clerk signs the receipt as witness. It is then delivered to the purchaser upon payment of the money, and thus the business is completed."

The established rate of brokerage is one-eighth per cent. (or 2s. 6d. in the 100%) upon the amount of stock transferred. There is no stamp-duty or tax of any kind upon transfers of Government Stock; but the transfer of Bank Stock under 251. costs 9s., above that amount, 12s.; of South Sea Stock under 100., 108., above it, 12s.; and of India Stock, of any amount,

17. 12s.

The dividends, it is to be observed, are not actually paid till some days (usually about a week) after they have become due; and the books at the Transfer Offices are always shut for about six weeks previous to the days of payment, during which period no transfers can be regularly made. Good Friday, Christmas Day, and the 1st of May and 1st of November (or the Monday following either of these two last-mentioned days, if it should fall on a Sunday), are also kept as holidays at the South Sea House and the Transfer Office in the Bank. The holidays in these establishments formerly amounted to forty-four in the year. At the India House the only holidays are Good Friday and Christmas Day.

In every sale of stock, the purchaser, at whatever time the sale may be made, purchases, along with the stock, the dividends upon it for the current half-year. In consequence of this, every description of stock, whatever other circumstances may affect its actual price in the market, rises in real value every day from term to term; and, if the action of all other circumstances were to be excluded, its price would, in point of fact, continue so to ascend. A person purchasing 1007. 3 per cent. consols, immediately before the shutting of the books for the dividends in July, acquires precisely the same amount of property as if he had made a similar purchase at the opening of the books immediately after the payment of the dividends in the preceding January; but as he has saved nearly half-a-year's interest upon his money by so deferring his investment, he will be willing, of course, to pay a correspondingly higher price for the stock at the one date than he would have paid at the other. Supposing the interval between the two dates to be four months, and the current rate of interest to be 3 per cent., the Three per Cent. Consols, when that stock is at 90, should be worth about 1 per cent. more at the shutting than at the opening of the books. Table A shows the proportion of half-yearly interest which has accrued upon the various public funds mentioned therein, on the 1st and 15th days of each month during the year.

In addition, however, to the actual transfers negotiated in the manner we have just explained, a vast deal of business is done in the money-market, both when the books are open and when they are shut, in what are called bargains for time. In these transactions one party engages to sell to another for a certain sum a certain amount of stock on a certain future

day, the calculation of the seller being that by the day in question the market price of stock will be lower, that of the buyer that it will be higher than the price agreed upon. If the bargain thus made were to be actually carried into effect, the seller, in case of the price turning out to be below that stipulated for, could purchase the requisite quantity of stock in the open market for a less sum than he would have to receive for it, and would therefore be a gainer by the difference between the two sums, while the buyer would be a loser by the same difference: in case of the price rising above that stipulated for, exactly the reverse would happen. The matter, however, is usually settled without any actual delivery of the

seller must apply to the clerk who has his station under the initial of his name. In all the offices there are supervising clerks who join in witnessing the transfer.

stock, but simply by the losing party paying the difference. "These bargains," says Dr. Hamilton, "are usually made for certain days fixed by a committee of the Stock Exchange, called settling days, of which there are about eight in the year, viz., one in each of the months of January, February, April, May, July, August, October, and November; and they are always on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, being the days on which the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt make purchases. The settling days in January and July are always the first days of the opening of the Bank books for public transfer; and these days are notified at the Bank, when the books are shut to prepare for the dividend. The price at which stock is sold to be transferred on the next settling day is called the price on account. Sometimes, instead of closing the account on the settling day, the stock is carried on to a future day on such terms as the parties agree on. This is called a continuation.”

These practices are evidently nothing else than a sort of betting, or gambling in the public funds; and as such, they have been discountenanced by the Legislature, and endeavours have been made to repress them by means of prohibitions and penalties. As these attempts, however, have wholly failed of their design, it may be questioned if there be any wisdom in persisting in them. Besides, it is by no means clear that any mischief is really done by this kind of speculation in the funds. The consequence, however, of the denouncement of such transactions by the law is, that bargains for time cannot be enforced in the courts, and the parties, therefore, are only to be held to them by a sense of honour, and by such restraints in the way of exposure and degradation as a private society like the Committee of the Stock Exchange may apply to its members. Parties not fulfilling their engagements cease to be members of the society, and are incapable of being re-admitted; their names are also posted up for a certain time in the Great Room. In this way their credit on 'Change is, of course, effectually destroyed. Such defaulters, in the language of the Stock Exchange, are called Lame Ducks. In the same technical dialect the seller, in a bargain for time, is termed a Bear, and the buyer a Bull-in allusion, it is commonly said, to the nature of the opposite interests of the two parties—that of the seller being to beat down prices, as the bear tramples anything under its feet-that of the buyer, to elevate them, as the bull is accustomed to toss the object of its attack into the air.

Instead of the fundholders, as is popularly imagined, being generally persons of great wealth, it appears that the yearly dividends of about a third of them do not exceed 107. for each person, and that those of very nearly five-sixths of them do not yield more than 1007. a-year to each. But further, as Mr. M'Culloch has remarked, "it is evident from this account, that the number of persons having a direct interest in the funds is much greater than it represents. The dividends the upon funded property belonging to the Equitable and other insurance companies, the different banking companies, &c., are paid upon single warrants, as if they were due to so many private individuals; whereas they are really paid to these individuals only because they act as factors or trustees for a vast number more. It is consequently quite absurd to pretend, as is sometimes done, that any interference with funded property would affect only 280,000 individuals out of a population of 25,000,000. Any attack upon the dividends would really be destructive, not merely of the interests of those to whom dividend warrants are issued, but of all who depend upon them; it would destroy our whole system of insurance and banking, and overspread the country with bankruptcy and ruin. Not only, therefore, is every proposal for an invasion of the property of the fundholders bottomed on injustice and robbery, but it would, were it acted upon, be little less ruinous to the community than to the peculiar class intended to be plundered.”

The number of individuals directly interested in the public funds as proprietors of stock is very considerable. The following statement will show that the holders of stock to a comparatively small amount bear a large proportion to the whole number of persons having money invested in the funds :—

192

By means of the savings' banks the National Debt is rendered a means of facilitating the accumulation of capital. In France the means of purchasing stock in the funds have been considerably extended since 1819. In that year auxiliary Grands Livres (called Petits Grands Livres) were opened in the provinces, and, as the Foreign Quarterly Review' (No. xiv. p. 418) remarks, "by familiarising the people with the subject, and facilitating the means of drawing out their money, added greatly to the demand for public securities, which was still further increased by reducing, in 1822, the minimum of an investment from fifty livres (about 21.) to ten, and giving various facilities for transfer and receipt of dividends in these small accounts." The disposition to hoard money is very strong in France, and it was therefore politic to adopt measures for encouraging its circulation. In England the savings' banks offer nearly the same facilities as the Petits Grands Livres in France; and the rate of interest being fixed andinde pendent of the prices of stock, a spirit of gambling is not encouraged. To the numbers in the above table, represented as being directly interested in the stability of the funding system, there ought to be added the depositors in savings' banks, which in November, 1839, comprised 748,396 persons, whose investments amounted to the sum of 22,425,8127.; of which 19,246,2217. belonged to 622,468 depositors in England, exclusive of Wales.

THERE is perhaps no portion of the earth's surface, of the same extent, which contains so great a variety of those mineral substances which minister to the necessities and comforts of life, as the island of Great Britain. The almost inexhaustible mines of coal, which are found in so many different parts of the island, have unquestionably been one of the chief sources of our wealth, and of our influence among the other nations of Europe. All our great manufacturing towns-Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Glasgow, Paisley-are not only situated in the immediate vicinity of coal, but never would have existed without it. If we had possessed no coal, we should have lost the greater part of the wealth which we derive from our metallic ores, for they could neither have been drawn from the depths where they lie concealed, nor, if found near the surface, could they have been profitably refined. Without coal the steam-engine would probably have remained among the apparatus of the philosopher: not only did the fuel supply the means of working the machine, but the demand for artificial power, in order to raise that same fuel from the bowels of the earth, more immediately led to the practical application of the great discovery made by Watt while repairing the philosophical instrument of Dr. Black. Before the invention of the steam-engine, the power required to move machinery was confined to the impelling force of running water, of wind, of animal and human strength,-all too weak, unsteady, irregular, and costly to admit of the possibility of extensive application. But the steam-engine gave a new power to the human race, capable of being applied to every purpose, and in every situation where fuel can be found. Thus manufactures arose, and from the cheapness with which labour could be commanded, and the prodigious increase of work done in the same space of time, their produce was so reduced in price as to bring luxuries and comforts within the reach of thousands who never enjoyed them before. New tastes thus excited and increasing consumption multiplied manufacturing establishments, and their demands led to great manufactures of machinery; competition led to improvement in the steam-engine itself, and thus, by the reciprocal action of improvement and demand, our machinery and manufactures gradually acquired their present high degree of perfection. With the improvement of the steamengine came the application of it to navigation and to wheelcarriages, which has already, in a few years, produced such extraordinary results.

Next to coal, iron is the most important of our mineral treasures; and it is a remarkable circumstance, that the ore of that metal should in Great Britain be placed in greatest abundance, not only in the vicinity of, but actually associated with, the coal necessary to separate the metal from the impurities of the ore, so as to render it fit for use. In Sweden, and most other countries where iron-mines exist, the ore is refined by means of wood; but no space on the surface of our island could have been spared to grow timber for such a purpose; and thus, without coal, in place of being, as we are now, great exporters of wrought and unwrought iron to distant nations, we must have depended on other countries for this metal.

There are extensive mines of lead in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Lanarkshire, Dumfriesshire, and several other places in Great Britain, sufficient not only for the internal demand for that metal, but yielding a considerable amount for exportation. Copper is produced in large quantities in Cornwall, and the same county has been celebrated for its tin-mines for nearly two thousand years.

Coal, iron, lead, copper, and tin, are the principal minerals of our country, which, in common language, are usually associated with the idea of the produce of mines. There is no silver or gold, with the exception of a little of the former con

No. 15.

tained in some of the ores of lead, and which is separated by refining, when in sufficient quantity to yield a profit beyond the expense of the process; but we have some other metals highly useful in the arts, such as zinc, antimony, and manganese.

Besides the substances above mentioned, we have many other mineral treasures of great importance. Of these the most valuable perhaps is limestone, from its use in agriculture, and from its being an indispensable ingredient in mortar for building; and there are not many parts of the island far distant from a supply of this material. Building-stone is found in most parts of the country; and although we must go to Italy for the material for the art of sculpture to be employed upon, we have freestones applicable to all the purposes of ornamental architecture, and we have many marbles of great beauty. If stones be far off, clay is never wanting to supply a substitute; and the most distant nations have their daily food served up in vessels, the materials of which, dug from our clay-pits, have given occupation to thousands of our industrious population in our potteries and china manufactures. For our supply of salt, that essential part of the daily sustenance of almost every human being, we have in the mines and salt springs of Cheshire and Worcestershire almost inexhaustible stores of the purest quality, unmixed with those earthy and other ingredients which must be separated by an expensive process, before a culinary salt can be obtained from the water of the sea.

Familiar as is almost every one of the mineral substances we have named, in the common business of life, there are many persons who have a very imperfect idea from whence they are derived, and what previous processes they undergo before they can be made applicable to use. We therefore propose to make them acquainted with the natural history of our mineral treasures, with the mode in which they are obtained from the mines, and with the operations they are subjected to, before they can be brought forward as marketable commodities. To do this, however, in an intelligible manner, some preliminary information is indispensable, without which the terms we must employ would not be understood. This introductory matter will embrace a popular sketch of the leading doctrines in Geology, that department of science whose object is to investigate the nature and properties of the substances of which the solid crust of the earth is composed; the laws of their combinations, as constituting the elements of rocks and other stony masses; the arrangement of these different masses, and their relations to each other; the changes which they appear to have undergone at various successive periods; and, finally, to establish a just theory of the construction of that solid

crust.

The term Geology is derived from two Greek words meaning a discourse (logos), respecting the earth (ge). In giving an outline of this science, our sole purpose is to render our description of some of the principal mineral productions that we meet with in common life more intelligible. We mean to confine ourselves to the great general truths which have been discovered, without entering upon any detail of the proofs and reasonings upon which these have been established.

The earth is a spherical body, somewhat flattened at the poles, the diameter from pole to pole being about 27 miles less than that which intersects the equator; more than three-fifths of its surface are covered by the ocean; the land rises from the surface of the sea in the form of islands and of great continuous masses called continents, without any regularity of outline, either where it comes in contact with the water, or in vertical elevation,-its surface being diversified by plains, valleys, hills, and mountains, which sometimes rise to the height of 26,000 feet above the level of the sea. Numerous soundings in different parts of the world have shown that the bottom of the ocean

Q

is as diversified by inequalities as the surface of the land: a great part of it is unfathomable to us, and the islands and continents which rise above its surface are the summits of mountains. Different climates produce different races of animals and different families of plants; but the mineral kingdom, as far as the nature of stone is concerned, is independent of the influence of climate, the same rocks being found in the polar and in the equatorial regions. From all the observations hitherto made, there is no reason to suppose that any unexplored country contains mineral bodies with which we are not already acquainted; and although we cannot say of what rocks an unexamined land is likely to be composed, it is extremely improbable that any extensive series of rocks should be found, constituting a class different from any which have been already met with in other parts of the globe.

When we dig through the vegetable soil we usually come to clay, sand, or gravel, or to a mixture of these unconsolidated materials; and, in some countries, we shall probably find nothing else' at the greatest depths to which we are able to penetrate. But in most places, after getting through the clay and gravel, we should come upon a hard stone, lying in layers or beds parallel to each other, either of one kind or of different kinds, according to the depth; and which would vary in different countries, and in different places in the same country, as well in its constituent parts as in the thickness, alternation, and position of its beds or layers. It has been ascertained by observation in various parts of the world, that the crust of the earth is composed of a scries of such layers, distinguishable from each other by very marked characters. The elements of which they are composed are not very numerous, being for the most part the hard substance called quartz by mineralogists, of which gun-flints may be cited as a familiar example, and the well-known substances, clay and limestone; but these elements are aggregated or mixed up together in so many proportions and forms as to produce a considerable variety of rocks. Besides this elementary composition, or what may be termed their simple structure, the greatest proportion, of the rocks that are so arranged in layers contain foreign bodies, such as fragments of other rocks, shells, bones of land and amphibious animals and of fishes, and portions of trees and plants. It has further been found that these different layers, or strata as they are called, lie upon each other in a certain determinate order, which is never, in any degree, inverted. Suppose the series of strata to be represented by the letters of the alphabet, A being the stratum nearest the surface, and Z the lowest: A is never found below Z nor under any other of the intervening letters; nor is Z ever found above any of the letters that stand before it in the alphabet; and so it is with all the strata represented by the other letters. This will be rendered more clear by the annexed diagram, which is an imaginary section of the crust of the globe, representing a series of different strata. On one side there is a general description of the nature of the stone; on the other the name of some particular place where that stratum is to be seen. But although this regularity in the order of superposition exists, all the different members of the series do not always occur together; on the contrary, there is no instance where they have all been found in one place. It possibly may happen that where C is found in a horizontal position, by going deeper all the rest would follow in succession, but this we can never know, as the thickness would be greatly beyond our means of penetrating; and there are reasons which render the existence of such an uninterrupted series extremely improbable. It very seldom happens that more than three or four members of the series can be seen together ;-we say of the series, because each member is composed of an almost infinite number of subordinate layers. This order of succession has been determined by the combination of many observations made in different countries at distant points. The order of three or four members was ascertained in one place; the upper stratum in that place was found to be the lowest member of a second series in another place, and the lowest stratum at the first station was observed to be the uppermost at a third point; and in like

manner the order of superposition was discovered throughout the whole range. The strata which lie next each other in the diagram are not always so in nature; as for instance, it very often happens that F lies upon H, G being altogether absent; and C may even be seen lying on R, the whole of the intervening members of the series being wanting. Very frequently one of the lowest members of the series appears at the surface. Every one knows that sometimes chalk, sometimes slate, lies immediately beneath the vegetable soil, or even at the surface without that scanty covering; but if a lower member of the series represented in the diagram be seen at the surface, however deep we might go, we should never find any one of those rocks that belong to the higher members of that series. The immense practical advantage of this knowledge of the determinate order of succession will be seen at once; for if O, or any of the lower members of the series, were found to occupy the surface of the country, it would be at once known that all search for coal in that spot would be fruitless.

Geologists have fixed the order of superposition in the strata composing the crust of the globe, partly by the mineral composition of each member of the series, partly by their containing fragments of other rocks, but chiefly from the remains of animals and plants that are imbedded in them. It was observed that there was a class of rocks distinguished by a considerable degree of hardness, by closeness of texture, by their arrangement in slaty beds, and by possessing, when in thick masses, a glistening structure called crystalline by mineralogists, and of which statuary marble, or loaf sugar, may be quoted as familiar examples: when associated with rocks of another sort, also, they always were lowest.-These are marked R in the diagram No. 1. Above and in contact with them another group of strata was observed, which had a good deal of resemblance to those below them in mineral composition, but contained rounded fragments of other rocks, and when these fragments were examined they were found to be identical with the rocks composing the lower strata. This second series was observed to be covered by another group of strata which contained shells and corals, bodies that had never been seen in any of the lower strata. Thus it was clear that previous to the formation of this third group there had existed rocks to supply the imbedded fragments, and to contain the waters of the ocean in which the animals that once inhabited the shells must have lived. Observing the strata as they lay one above another towards the surface, it was found that many were entirely composed of the fragments of pre-existing rocks either in the form of pebbles or of sand cemented together; that there was a vast increase in the number and variety of the imbedded shells, the latter forming very often entire beds of rock, many feet in thickness; and that the remains of plants began to appear. In this manner certain great divisions of the strata were established by very clear and infallible distinctive characters. But about 35 years ago, Mr. William Smith, of Churchill, in Oxfordshire, by an extensive series of observations in different parts of England, ascertained that particular strata were characterized by the presence of certain fossil shells, which were either confined exclusively to them, or in predominating quantity, or were of rare occurrence in other strata; and he was thus enabled to identify two rocks at distant points as belonging to one stratum, when mere mineral characters would either have left him in uncertainty, or have entirely failed in deciding the question. When this discovery became known to geologists, numerous observations were made in other countries, which completely proved that the principle held good generally, and throughout the whole series of strata, from the lowest in which organic remains are found to those nearest the surface. Under the direction of this guide, geologists have been enabled to discover lines of separation in the great divisions which had been established by prior observations, pointing out distinct epochs of deposition, and revealing a succession of changes in the organic and inorganic creation, in a determinate chronological order. This more accurate knowledge of the structure of the crust of the globe is of the