108 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [April^ 



that branch only partially. For, since the British coprolite-beda 

 have been extensively worked, they have supplied fossil phosphates 

 at a price so low as to supersede, in a great measure, the supply 

 of recent bones, for agricultural purposes, from Continental coun- 

 tries. Nor do the laws of political economy permit us to doubt 

 that undue scarcity, artificially created, gradually raises market 

 price to an extent which becomes at last prohibitory; so that the 

 evil provides its own corrective. Of this, indeed, a very apposite 

 illustration reaches the Reporter while he writes. M. Clemm- 

 Lenniga, manufacturer of Manheim, informs him that English 

 fossil phosphates are being extensively exported to Germany ; he 

 himself (M. Clemm-Lennig) receiving considerable supplies of this 

 material from British ports. The balance of trade seems, there- 

 fore, to be arriving at a just equilibrum in this matter, as, indeed, 

 it always does, if only it be left to swing freely. 



Modern Historical Events connected with the De- 

 velopment OP the Manurial Industry. — But were Eng- 

 land a more signal offender than she is, or ever has been, against 

 what may be termed the manurial equilibrium of the world, she 

 might plead her justification in the train of modern historical 

 events which have brought her manurial industry into its present 

 remarkable phasis ; a phasis purely transitional, and which marks 

 the crisis of a momentous revolution, even now in course of ac- 

 complishment. 



The events here alluded to, like the revolution in which they 

 are culminatins:, have their common orisjin in the memorable in- 

 vention of the steam-engine by Watt. 



The new motive power placed by Watt's genius at the disposal of 

 mankind, after having transformed in succession every other main 

 branch of human industry — the spinning and weaving of raiment, 

 for example ; the arts of locomoiion, by land and sea ; all the 

 various forms of brute drudgery, such as lifting, hewing, pumping^ 

 grinding, &;c. ; all the technical plastic arts, from the shaping of 

 the most stubborn metals to the moulding of the most delicate 

 clay — in a word, after having lightened for mankind all the other 

 forms of toil, is now making its way into the farm, and impress- 

 ing upon the operations of husbandry an equally signal revolu- 

 tion. 



It is important to observe that the transformations which have 

 preceded this final, and most momentous change of all, have not 



