252 THE FARMER AT HOME. 



and love of peace of the Chinese. They till the earth in every avail- 

 able spot ; they drain marshes, and earth over waste places ; they 

 turn all the riches of the earth to the most practicable account ; and 

 living peacefully and simply, they have comfort and plenty. No peo- 

 ple on earth live so completely within their own means. They have 

 never sought the trade of any country, never have interfered with 

 any other country ; but, minding their own business, have grown rich 

 and been wise, when more boasting nations were steeped in poverty 

 and ignorance. Surely the nations and people of Europe and the 

 Western Hemisphere, have yet to learn the art of true living and well 

 governing. 



LOADSTONE. A sort of ore dug out of iron mines, on which 

 the needle of the mariner's compass is touched, to give it a direction 

 north or south. It is a peculiarly rich ore of iron, found in large 

 masses in England, and most other places where there are mines of 

 that metal. It is of a deep iron gray, and when fresh broken, it is 

 often tinged with a brownish or reddish color. 



LOCOMOTION. The chief obstacles which oppose locomotion, 

 or change of place, are gravity and friction, the last of which is, in 

 most cases, a consequence of the first. Gravity confines all terrestrial 

 bodies against the surface of the earth, with a force proportionate to 

 the quantity of matter which compose them. Most kinds of mechan- 

 ism, both natural and artificial, which assist locomotion, are arrange- 

 ments for obviating the effects of gravity and friction. Animals that 

 walk, obviate friction by substituting points of their bodies instead of 

 large surfaces, and upon these points they turn, as upon centres, for 

 the length of each step, raising themselves wholly or partly from the 

 ground in successive arcs, instead of drawing themselves along the 

 surface. As the feet move in separate lines, the body has also a 

 lateral, vibratory motion. A man, in walking, puts down one foot 

 before the other is raised, but not in running. Quadrupeds, in walk- 

 ing, have three feet upon the ground for most of the time ; in trotting 

 only two. 



For moving weights over the common ground, with its ordinary 

 asperities and inequalities of substance and structure, no piece of 

 inert mechanism is so favorably adapted as the wheel carriage. It 

 was introduced into use in very early ages. Wheels diminish friction, 

 and also surmount obstacles, or inequalities of the road, with more 

 advantage than bodies of any other form, in their place, could do. 

 The friction is diminished by transferring it from the surface of the 

 ground to the centre of the wheel, or, rather, to the place of contact 

 between the axle-tree and the box of the wheel ; so that it is lessened 

 by the mechanical advantage of the lever, in the proportion which the 

 diameter of the axle-tree bears to the diameter of the wheel. The 

 rubbing surfaces, also, being kept polished and smeared with some 

 unctuous substance, are in the best possible condition to resist friction. 



