96 ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDUSTRIAL ART AND OBJECT-LESSONS. 



The vegetable substances are arranged under six divisions or classes, in 

 order to show some of the ways in which trees and plants are useful to 

 man— viz. : Roots, Juices, Bark, Stalks and Stems, Leaves and Flowers, 

 Fruits and Seeds of Plants, &c. 



There is, perhaps, no one of the Natural History sciences that can be so 

 successfully introduced into a course of education as botany. Plants are 

 always to be g t. The study of their structure is well adapted to call out 

 the observing powers of children, whilst their classification is founded on 

 principles which apply to the arrangement and classification of all facts. 

 The use of the knowledge of plants is, also, not slight. They supply the 

 material of many of our most important manufactures, whilst the great 

 question connected with the supply of food to man and the domestic animals 

 are dependent on a knowledge of plants and their functions. At the same 

 time, little has yet been done beyond the requirements of our medical 

 schools, for the systematic teaching of botany in our schools and universities. 



The animal substances are arranged so as to show the various commercial 

 products obtained from the primary groups and classes into which the 

 animal kingdom is divided, and are intended to illustrate the various useful 

 applications of animal substances to industrial purposes — viz., for clothing, 

 domestic and ornamental purposes, pigments and dyes, perfumery and 

 pharmacy, and the application of waste substances, quills, pens, guano, 

 tortoiseshell (raw and prepared). 



This collection will serve to furnish an approximate idea of the extent of 

 the commerce in animal products. The aggregate value of the articles dealt 

 in exceeds £136,000,000 sterling, employs an amazing amount of capital, and 

 gives busy industrial occupation to a very large number of persons, in the 

 collection, distribution, and after preparation of the material, to fit them 

 for use ; while the large amount of tonnage of shipping employed, and the 

 inland transport from place to place, of the raw material and the finished 

 manufactured product resulting therefrom, are other elements of active 

 industry in which our population are specially interested. 



FRESH "WATER WEED OF CHINA. 

 This weed is similar in nature and uses to our Irish moss. It is from the province 

 of Huper. It differs from our sea weed, in being found on the banks of the fresh 

 water lake, the celebrated Yungting Hu. A specimen was lately presented to the 

 Agri Horticultural Society of India by C. Alabaster, Esq. 



DIAMONDS. 



An interesting paper on diamonds was read at a recent meeting of the Royal Institu- 

 tion by N. S. Maskelyne, of the Mineralogical Department of the British Museum. A 

 detailed account appeared in the Critic of June 30, 1860. 



