two grains.  A bar of iron washed with this
mess—we speak from report—looks like a bar
of gold, to the great deterioration of confiding
innocence.  A brisk trade might be driven in
essential oils, which are such wonderful agents
for adulteration.  The oil of winter-green, so
much used in perfumery, now comes from an
acid got from the willow, and a spirit produced
by the distillation of wood.  Fusel oil, from
potatoes, makes oil of pear, used in perfumery
and the so-called "jargonelle pear drops;" and
oil of apple is only the same fusel oil distilled
with sulphuric acid and bichromate of potash.
Oil of pine-apple comes from the product
of the fermentation of sugar with putrid
cheese, or of soap made with fresh butter and
potash; oil of cognac is fusel oil again
diluted with alcohol; and oil of bitter almonds is
the action of nitric acid on fetid oil of gas tar.
All these are extensively used in perfumery and
other manufactures, and would repay any one
who chose to make them in still greater abundance.
Artificial india-rubber can be formed by
mixing starch and gluten with tannin and
resinous or oily substances; and artificial milk
can be made of yolk of egg, gum acacia, honey,
and salad oil. This mixture gives the caseine,
albumen, gum, grape sugar, and fatty matter,
evolved from natural milk. It will keep sweet
for two years.  Artificial fuel may be got out
of dried ground and spent tan, mixed with melted
resin and pressed into blocks; artificial ice,
from a solution of nitre and sal ammoniac.
Artificial marble is made of plaster of Paris
hardened so as to receive an excellent polish.
Another marble is made of cement mixed in with
the waste materials of silk works, or the short
cuttings from cloth and velvet; the whole thus
forming a mass having either a uniform colour
or a mixture of colours throughout, while the
veins are formed by silk threads drawn out to
imitate such marks as may be fancied. This
material can be made in stucco for seven cents
the square foot; in hard cement it is nine cents
the square foot: when polished, a still higher
price is charged. Another capital imitation of
marble facing to buildings is got by a wash
consisting of hydrate of lime, which, by combining
with the carbonic acid of the atmosphere, forms
a natural marble paint.  In about two or three
months the surfaces to which it has been applied
acquire the hardness of marble; the brilliancy
of marble comes almost immediately.  Many
kinds of artificial stones, cements, glues, welding
powders, and the like, may be made at low cost
and sold at great profits; and you may stain
common woods to imitate the more expensive
kinds so dexterously, that few shall be able to
see the difference.

We want substitutes for various things.
Substitutes for the potato have been already
discussed, now come substitutes for coffee, in ripe
asparagus seeds roasted and ground; in acorns,
mangel-wurzel, dandelion, wheat, and the ripe
seeds of the okra, all of which, Mr. Freedley
says, make capital substitutes and first-rate
imitations. Leather is scarce and dear: what
think you of porpoise leather and alligator's
hide? The latter gives a leather as pliant as
calf-skin, and mottled like tortoiseshell, making
capital boots and shoes, and as good saddles as
the best pig-skin in the world. Discover an
exhilarating drink that shall be innocuous and not
intoxicating; find a good, cheap, and wholesome
substitute for tobacco; invent a mosquito
exterminator, and something that shall slaughter
bugs, cockroaches, ants, rats, and mice as well;
for your thousand and first chance, cultivate
osiers for baskets and chairs, &c.; domesticate
camels, llamas, alpacas, barren-ground reindeers,
vicunas, and the like; crush quartz in California;
evaporate sea salt along the shores of the
Atlantic; make starch of horse-chesnuts and
unsound potatoes; establish schools for teaching
young women domestic economy and common
sense; open common-sense museums "for the
exhibition of all objects bearing upon physical
comfort and domestic economy;" and, lastly,
"establish a Universal Natural History depôt
for the collection and sale (in scientifically
arranged cabinets) of objects in all the departments
of Natural History."

These are some of the principal of Mr.
Freedley's Chances.  If they succeed as well in
the trial as they are made to do on paper, any
man who adopts one or other of them may make
his fortune, leave a legacy to his descendants,
and found a family name not inferior to that of
Rothschild or Goldsmid.

THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN.

ACROSS the dull and brooding night
A giant flies, with demon light
  And breath of wreathing smoke;
Around him whirls the reeling plain,
And, with a dash of grim disdain,
  He cleaves the sundered rock.

In lonely swamps the low wind stirs
The belt of black funereal firs,
  That murmur to the sky,
Till, startled by his mad career,
They seem to keep a hush of fear,
   As if a god swept by!

Through many a dark wild heart of heath,
O'er booming bridges, where beneath
  A midnight river brawls;
By ruin, remnants of the past,
Their ivies trembling in the blast;
  By singing waterfalls!

The slumb'rer on his silent bed,
Turns to the light his lonely head,
  Divested of its dream.
Long leagues of gloom are hurried o'er,
Through tunnel-sheaths, with iron roar,
  And shrill night-rending scream.

Past huddling huts, past flying farms,
High furnace flames, whose crimson arms
  Are grappling with the night,
He tears along receding lands,
To where the kingly city stands,
  Wrapt in a robe of light.

Here, round each wide and gushing gate,
A crowd of eager faces wait,