334 



A Dream — yet not a Drea?n. 



Vol. IX 



whaler for the oil, which thus smoothes his 

 way and expedites his journey. Let the 

 man who buys cotton for a shirt, at ten cents 

 a yard, thank the whaler, for it was whale 

 oil that lubricated the machinery which pro- 

 duced it. Let every human being that wears 

 cloth, or consumes any other article produced 

 by machinery, acknowledge the obligation 

 he owes to the daring perseverance of the 

 whaler, for these are all, in some degree, 

 the results of his toil and enterprise. Let 

 even the dainty readers of books consider 

 that by the light which is the product of the 

 whaleman's skill, their pages are, perhaps, 

 composed ; and let every family circle, happy 

 and cheerful in the blaze of the astral lamp, 

 remember that they too, owe their enjoy- 

 ment, in part, to these adventurous men of 

 the harpoon. Let even the members of the 

 brilliant evening party remember that the 

 light which gleams from ranges of sperma- 

 ceti tapers, and bestows on beauty more be- 

 witching charms, is the fruit of the seaman's 

 danger and the seaman's privation. Alas, 

 how " little does one part of the world consi- 

 der in what manner the rest live !" While 

 the dance and the song enthral the gay cir- 

 cle of the saloon, how far are the joyous 

 throng from reflecting that thousands of their 

 fellow-beings are upon the treacherous wave, 

 toiling and suffering to provide a luxurious 

 light to shine upon their pleasures! 



The Seal Fishery. — We are little apt to 

 consider the romance which is involved in 

 the history of many of our commonest com- 

 forts. The boy with his seal-skin cap is 

 content to feel its warmth in the bitter 

 breath of winter, without reflecting upon 

 the tale that cap could tell, if it were gifted 

 with speech. Its original owner was born 

 and nursed upon an Arctic shore, where 

 winter holds an almost eternal dominion. 

 There, amid fields of ice, and in daily fa- 

 miliarity with the whale, the walrus, and 

 the white bear, it pursued its joyous and 

 sportive career. Diving in the depths of 

 the sea, or migrating on floating fields of 

 ice, it seemed forever happy in companion 

 ship with its fellows, and gave even to the 

 ghastly scenes of the Artie world an aspect 

 of cheerfulness. At length it was slain by 

 the spear of the Esquimaux, or the club of 

 the sealer; the skin was stripped off" and 

 transported to Europe. Having undergone 

 a process of dressing, it crossed the Atlantic, 

 passed under the hammer of the auctioneer, 

 reached the shop of the furrier, and after 

 due conformation from the shears and nee- 

 dle, arrived at its ultimate destination on 

 the school boy's pate. 



Extent of Agriculture. — If we reflect 

 that about 



600,000,000 of human beings, 

 50,000,000 domesticated horses, asses and 

 mules, 



150,000,000 domesticated cattle, 



300,000,000 domesticated sheep, 

 80,000,000 domesticated swine, 

 12,000,000 domesticated goats, 

 are to be fed every day by the industry of 

 man, we shall have some faint conception of 

 the vast scale upon which the operations of 

 agriculture are conducted. If we conceive 

 that the sun, in its daily course, wakes up 

 the whole human race to their labours, and 

 imagine ourselves as accompanying his morn- 

 ing rays in their flight over the world, we 

 may easily fancy the spectacles of activity 

 we should witness, on the hills, and in the 

 valleys, and spreading out from the arctic to 

 the antarctic circle ! 



Wonders of the Cotton Manufactory. — 

 Nor will our wonder be abated, when we 

 consider the results of these establishments. 

 A single cotton factory — that of the Merri- 

 mack at Lowell — produces 250,000 yards of 

 cotton cloth a week, or 12,500,000 yards a 

 year. There are about 5000 yards of thread 

 in a yard of cloth ; thus every working day, 

 this factory spins 600 million feet of thread; 

 •50 millions every working hour, and nearly 

 one million every minute ! Thus, a cord of 

 sufficient length to belt the world at the 

 equator, is produced by a single factory, in 

 two hours. This is the work of one estab- 

 lishment, and is not more than a two-hun- 

 dredth part of the whole manufacture of the 

 United States! The length of thread drawn 

 out by the cotton factories of the world, can- 

 not be less than fifteen millions of feet every 

 working second, or every time the heart 

 beats ! Such is the bewildering magnitude 

 of the scale upon which this single branch 

 of human industry is conducted. 



Wonders of the Iron Manifactory. — The 

 amount of iron annually produced in the 

 United States, is 300,000 tons, all of which, 

 andjuuch more, is consumed in this country. 

 The amount of nails alone is supposed to be 

 50,000 tons. Forty thousand casks, or four 

 million pounds, are annually made by the 

 Boston Company, on the mill-dam. If we 

 suppose that the nails will average 160 to a 

 pound, the number here produced each work- 

 ing day, would be nearly two millions! This 

 is supposed to be but the twenty-fifth part of 

 the nail manufacture of the United States! 

 It seems incredible that about fifty millions 

 of nails are made, bought, sold and used, 

 every day, in the United States — yet such 

 seems to be the fact. 



He who has no bread to spare, should not 

 keep a dog. 



