Wales, is the lord of one hundred and sixty-
six thousand acres. The Commissioners of
Woods and Forests, with the Chancellor of
the Duchy of Cornwall, are his land stewards.
We are anxious to see what they will make
of that which might render our future king
the richest prince in Europe, and raise his
fortune far above the necessity of any addition
from the Exchequer.

It was with fond satisfaction that, on
recently visiting Prince Town, in the centre
of this moor—where formerly ten thousand
French prisoners were kept—we observed the
establishment which had been let to, and given
up by, a company for the manufacture of
naphtha, was in rapid course of re-conversion
to the purposes of prison discipline. The
experiment of making criminals support
themselves, in place of suffering them to "eat off
their own heads" and a hole in honest folks'
pockets, is about to be fairly tried. The
worst classes of convicts are to be marched
out daily, under military inspection, to reclaim
the moor: and already two hundred convicts
are on the spot, selected out of various handicrafts,
to prepare the buildings for the reception
of the rest. Setting aside the commercial
results to be anticipated from this measure,
it will help to solve the great problem, "What
shall we do with our convicts?" If the
principle be enforced of making them work out
their emancipation in longer or shorter periods,
according to the various terms of imprisonment,
the best step towards the reformation,
co-incident with the punishment of the
criminal, will have been taken.

Our attention to the subject of the capabilities
of Dartmoor has just been revived, by
the recent announcement in the Times, of the
complete and proved success of the
experiments of Mr. Owen, an Irish landowner of
large possessions, Dr. Hodges, Professor of
Agriculture in Queen's College, Belfast, and
Messrs. Cuffey and Sons, founded upon the
discovery of Mr. Rees Reece, the eminent
engineer of London, to convert peat into
valuable articles of commerce, yielding a
clear profit of cent. per cent. Although the
chief object of these experiments was to
render the bogs of Ireland, as Mr. O'Gornian
Mahon hyperbolically expressed it, "A
perfect California to the nation," their
results are not less applicable to the case of
Dartmoor.

Besides the riches to be culled from the
surface of Dartmoor, the exploitation of much
wealth from beneath the surface is to be
expected. The strata abound in valuable
lodes of tin ore. The unstratified formation
is equally and universally rich in inexhaustible
tracts of the finest granite, of the kind
of which is composed the Nelson Column in
Trafalgar Square, in London. Ascending
again to the surface, we find that when fully
drained—by the removal of the peat for the
purpose of the contemplated profitable
manufacture—many thousand acres of fine friable
loam will be uncovered immediately below,
capable of carrying crops of every description
of agricultural produce common to the island;
and at the south-western extremity of the
region, in the parish of Haugh, within seven
miles of Plymouth, and six of the Plympton
station of the South Devon Railway, (which
commences an unbroken line of rail from
thence through the whole interior of the
country,) is to be found an inexhaustible
supply of the very finest fire-brick earth,
superior in quality even to the far-famed brick
earth of Stourbridge.

But in the district, popularly known as that
sub-division of this region which is designated
Lea Moor, a material has been found of the
most vital importance to one of the most
productive and extensive branches of our national
industry.

It has long been known to geologists that
a powerful chemical agent is produced by the
solution of peat caused by the filtration
through it of rain water; which, falling upon
granite, decomposes it, and dissolves it into
its component parts. A bed, the product of
this powerful and useful agent, nine hundred
acres in extent, and of an ascertained depth
of one hundred and twenty feet, has been
discovered, which on being analysed, is found
to produce a virtually inexhaustible supply
of the finest porcelain clay perhaps to be
found in the world. It has been compared
by Brogniart, the celebrated manufacturer of
Sêvres; Bethier, and others; with that of
St. Irieux in France, and St. Austell in Cornwall,
and pronounced superior to either. Its
extent may be imagined, when it is known
that it will supply twenty thousand tons of
China clay annually, for a period of upwards
of two thousand years. Then, as to the
means of manufacture: at the distance of
only thirty miles, the Bovey Tracey lignite
quarries supply an article eminently adapted
for baking earthenware of every description;
and as it is calculated that every ton of porcelain
clay requires for its manufacture at least
four tons of fuel, the Lee Moor beds of clay
supply the only link necessary to raise this
country to the highest point of pre-eminence
in natural capability for the manufacture of
pottery.

It may well excite the surprise of those
who have been accustomed to watch the rapid
progress of the enterprise and energy of our
capitalists—that the resources of this vast
district, susceptible of conversion to so many
useful and profitable purposes—should have
hitherto been suffered to remain comparatively
undeveloped. That the greater portion of it is
the property of the Crown, and has been left
to the management of the stewards of its
hereditary revenues, may perhaps in a great
measure account for the neglect which
has hitherto deprived the nation of the
advantage of its numerous elements of
productiveness. But as the stage-manager in
Mathews "At Home," consoled himself for