144 Lectures on the Results of the 



An instructive and comprehensive collection of feathers and 

 down, in different states of preparation for bed-stuffing, including 

 English goose feathers, Irish goose and mixed feathers, Dantzic 

 feathers, Russian goose feathers, and mixed duck feathers, Hudson's 

 Bay goose and duck feathers, Russian down and Greenland eider 

 down, were exhibited by Messrs Heal & Son. Messrs W. & C. 

 Nightingale likewise exhibited an illustrative collection of feathers 

 and down, shewing the effects of their mode of purifying feathers 

 by steam, without the use of sulphurous gas. 



In the Indian department were shewn white and black ostrich 

 plumes ; but these had been imported from Aden. If the ostrich 

 ever steps into Asia, it is only a little way into the Arabian side 

 of the Isthmus of Suez : the Struthio camelus belongs to a peculiarly 

 African genus of the great wingless birds. Tippets, victorines, and 

 boas made from the down of the young adjutant- crane (Ciconia ar- 

 gala) were exhibited from Commercolly ; and also beautiful white 

 feathers of a smaller species of crane from Arrahan. 



5. General Remarks on Materials from the Vegetable and Ani- 

 mal Kingdom. — Whatever the animal can afford for food or 

 clothing, for our tools, weapons, or ornaments — whatever the 

 lower creation can contribute to our wants, our comforts, our pas- 

 sions, or our pride, that we sternly exact and take, at all cost to the 

 producers. No creature is too bulky or formidable for man's de- 

 structive energies — none too minute and insignificant for his keen 

 detection and skill of capture. It was ordained from the begin- 

 ning that we should be masters and subduers of all inferior ani- 

 mals. Let us remember, however, that we ourselves, like the 

 creatures we slay, subjugate, and modify, are the results of the 

 same Almighty creative will — temporary sojourners here, and co- 

 tenants with the worm and the whale of one small planet. In 

 the exercise, therefore, of those superior powers that have been in- 

 trusted to us, let us ever bear in mind that our responsibilities are 

 heightened in proportion. 



III. — Dr Lyon Playfair. 



1. Iron- Smelting. — Let us select the smelting of iron,* as an ex- 

 ample of the teachings of chemistry. If practice, unaided by science, 

 be sufficient for the prosecution of manufactures, this venerable art 

 must be thoroughly matured, and science could scarcely expect to 



* Although the smelting of iron is not strictly within the division of Manu- 

 factures, according to the classification, its importance to this country will 

 authorise an exception in its favour. 



