and thus preventing the injurious effects which would otherwise result to the cattle by their doing so. * If observation has proved this to be the habit of the goose, it may surely be regarded as presumptive evidence of its being "unclean;" for the result of such food, although without killing the goose, is likely to render its flesh an unwholesome food for man.

Serpents, worms, and insects of all kinds except locusts, are also prohibited; and so much have mankind generally concurred in avoiding these, as to render remark upon the propriety of the prohibition, here, altogether unnecessary.

* The following is the paragraph referred to, from which it will be seen that immunity from the injurious effects of poisonous weeds is stated to belong also to the ass, an animal which is unquestionably unclean:

"Utility of Geese and Asses to the Farmer.-It has been long remarked, that cattle of all kinds are never unhealthy where geese are kept in any quantity; and the reason assigned is simply this, that geese consume with complete impunity certain noxious weeds and grasses which taint more or less, according to their abundance, the finest paddocks depastured by horses, bullocks, and sheep. Most farmers are aware of this; and in many places where the beeves appear sickly, change is tried, and the soil which the cacklers tread is converted, for the time being, into a sort of infirmary. The pasturing of two or three asses with sickly cattle has also been found productive of the best effects, from a similar reason.-Farmer's Journal."

MY DEAR MADAM,

PARCELS.

As you sometimes complain of being burdened with parcels of clothing, &c., for charitable purposes, I have been requested to state, that if any of your readers will forward articles of clothing, either for grown persons or children, old linen, books or tracts, to P. P. C. Mr. Nisbet's, 21, Berners-street, Oxfordstreet, London, they will be carefully and thankfully applied to the purposes of the Poor Pious Clergy Clothing Society; an institution which, in the most quiet but judicious manner, supplies the wants of many distressed and most deserving families.

The Society is permitted to refer to Sir R. H. Inglis, Bart., the Rev. Dr. Spence of Cambridge, and the Rev. Dr. Marsh, of Leamington.

Your's, my dear Madam, very sincerely,

A. F.

MY CABINET.

No. VIII.

THERE are five classes of minerals yet remaining on our list; but as they are of rare occurrence, and indeed are not found at all in a pure state, we need say but little about them.

Selenium is found only in Sweden, and in the Hartz mountains, combined with silver, lead, mercury, &c., its proportions in these mixtures being but small.

Boron is usually found combined with oxygen, in the state called boracic acid. It occurs in volcanic regions; when mixed with soda, as in the lakes of Thibet, it is called borax, and after being purified, is used in glass-blowing, and the testing of chemical substances. It also combines with lime and magnesia, but in all its forms is very rare.

Fluorine is also found in the acid state, and always combined with either lime or magnesia. We shall have occasion to speak of it when we come to the beautiful crystals of lime, called Derbyshire or fluor spar.

Iodine is a substance obtained from the ashes of sea-plants, and I believe is never found in any other way; when heated, it rises into a vapour of a peculiar and beautiful colour, between violet and lilac. It is a powerful agent in medicine.

Of Bromine I am sorry to be unable to give any account, as I do not remember ever to have seen any specimen of it, nor can I find, in my limited library, any thing about it beyond the name.

We now come to a very different division of substances, the Metals. They are distinguished from those we have hitherto described by many peculiarities; they are generally found mixed with earth and clay, forming what are termed ores; when reduced from this to a pure state by heat, they are ductile, and malleable, which, as may easily be seen, is not the case with silicon, carbon, &c. They have also a peculiar lustre, called metallic, and they are heavier than the minerals, properly so called. There is something, (to my own fancy,) more comprehensible and tangible about the metals, than in those classes which we have hitherto considered. They seem like substantial old friends, of whom we have now to hear the private history, but with whose faces and virtues we have long been acquainted. The names of the forty-one classes of metals we have already given, in No. 2. of this series; we must now return to our Cabinet, and see what specimens it will afford us for description. Gold, as the most precious, as well as one of the oldest known, among the metals, takes the first place; on its value and uses it is not needful for me to enlarge. It is more frequently found in a pure or unmixed state than any other metal; and is washed from the sands of rivers in Mexico and South America, in large quantities. In Siberia, also, it has been found in masses, sometimes weighing as much as sixteen pounds. In Ireland, Scotland, and Germany, it is found in small quantities, and more plentifully in Hungary. Elec

trum is a mixture of gold and silver, consisting of about two thirds of the former, to one of the latter; it is found in Norway, Siberia, &c. Gold also occurs, in small proportions, in some ores of tellurium, and in iron pyrites. I have two specimens of the latter, which certainly look very unlike gold; but there is a fused greenish yellow look about the bit from Mexico, which speaks of the precious metal to the eye of the initiated.

Silver is perhaps the most beautiful of the metals, but unless when found in the state of white or virgin silver, it shows none of its beauty in the ore. A friend, who was looking over my collection, took up a piece of rich Mexican silver, and said, 'You do not call this black stuff silver, do you?—Now this is real silver, I should say,' taking a piece of ore, not one quarter the value of the other. Alas! for the judgment of the unpractised eye, the real silver, was nothing but lead, which looked very bright and precious, while the small proportion of silver in this specimen was as black and unsightly as the Mexican. Sulphur and antimony are found, in considerable proportions, in silver ores. Red silver is an interesting species; the crystals are of a rhombohedral form, and sometimes differ at the two ends. They are of a bright red, and generally semi-transparent. The principal localities of silver are Mexico, Peru, Norway, Saxony, Hungary, &c. In our own kingdom, it is found in Cornwall, and in the little isle of Serk, near Guernsey, where I obtained several specimens. It is not very pure, being largely mixed with lead and sulphur.

Iron is seldom found in a pure state; the masses called meteoric iron, being mixed with nickel or