but we equalise our smallest coins by passing
one kind at a small premium, and others
at a discount. Our smallest coin is one-tenth
of a dollar, called by us a "bit." With this
coin the most one can purchase is a cigar of
cabbage-leaves, a glass of poor liquor, or a
box of matches .

We have no church in Salmon Falls. Many
villages in the adjoining counties are ahead
of us in this and some other respects; but
Sunday is the great marketing day.

Our village has a mill situated at the
Falls, where an overshot wheel drives a saw.
This mill is on the banks of the river several
miles above us, and the business of floating
the cut logs down the river in the season of
high water is attended with some danger.
Our location has a bridge, the third that we
have built; the two before it having been
washed away during the freshets of past
winters.

We are not a dull community of men,
being cheered by the ladies of our village. We
have married ladies and young ladies, who
come out at our balls, and dance for the real
love of dancing. The enamoured youth may,
if he be brisk, see the belle of the ball-room
up with the lark next morning milking the
cows; for every fair maid of Salmon Falls
believes in work when it is the time to
work, and in dancing when it is the time to
dance. We blend the gaieties of town with
the charms of country. We are proud of
our gardens. Here up in the mountains
many a little valley is to be seen carefully
ploughed and sown, soon rewarding labour
with fine fields of grain. We raise melons of
all kinds without any exertion, and in
immense quantities. They are of a size and
quality unknown in London or in Paris.

Finally, and in farther proof of our
activity, I will only add that our village has
the aqueduct of a water company
running through it, and that the reservoirs of
several other companies are within sight.
These works supply the water used in washing
the gold. The largest of these channels
carries the water over twenty miles.

PATCHWORK.

WHEN Captain Basil Hall had finished one
of his agreeable budgets of naval and
miscellaneous gossip, he sought for a name which
should indicate a collection of odds and ends,
of fragments, of random sketches and
anecdotes, of bits picked up hither and thither.
He thought of "Breccia," because geologists
tell us that breccia is a collection of bits and
fragments;" he thought of "Conglomerate,"
because this implies something akin to
breccia, but both appeared to be too learned;
and then he thought of "Pudding-stone," but
this sounds too much like making fun; and
at last he decided on "Patchwork," because it
is a good old English household word, exactly
indicating a production made up of shreds and
patches. Now, there are many kinds of artistic
productions which we feel disposed to call
patchwork, for a like reason: marquetry-patch-
work, parquetry-patchwork, buhl-patchwork,
niello-patchwork, damascene-patchwork,
enamel-patchwork; and we can assure any
person who has not duly thought on the
matter, that these various kinds of patchwork
often call forth considerable grace, taste, and
delicate art. Of the " little bits " which com-
pose mosaic-patchwork, we discoursed in our
seventh volume, and have naught to do with
them here.

A scrap of French will show us the origin
and meaning of the word marquetry. The
verb marqueter means "to inlay," and thus
marquetry and inlaying are one and the same
thing. But then it is understood that wood,
and wood only is the material of the pieces
employed; if they be aught else, it becomes
mosaic, or pietra-dura, or buhl, or niello, or
damasquinerie. The pieces are usually very
thin, so as to be applied as a veneer to a
foundation of coarser material; and they are
generally of different colours, that their
juxtaposition may produce graceful and harmonious
designs. Some of the early nations practised
the marquetry art; but it was not until the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that it
became a favourite and recognised kind of
adornment. The ruder specimens were simply
checquers or unmeaning designs of black and
white wood; but one John of Verona found
out the way to stain his little pieces of wood,
and to shape and adjust them so as to produce
pictures. The next generation of marquetriers
had the advantage of employing some of the
beautifully coloured woods procured from
America; they also devised a peculiar mode
of burning or scorching the surface without
consuming the wood, by means of hot sand,
and thus obtained a power of producing
variations in light and shade.

It is a pretty art, this: midway between
an artist's work and a workman's work. The
design, having been first drawn on paper and
properly coloured, is pricked with a fine
needle; and through the perforations a little
pounce is passed upon the coloured wood
beneath, which thus becomes marked with
an outline of the design. These outlines are
then carefully cut. Supposing, for the sake
of illustration, that the marquetry consists of
a pattern in light wood inlaid in a general
surface of dark wood; in such case the two
pieces of wood are cut together, with the
same application of the saw; and thus the
piece cut out of the light wood corresponds
exactly in shape and size with the opening
left in the dark wood, so as to fit into it
accurately. In the earlier work, the wood
was cut by hand, the thin pieces of wood
being held in a vice, and the saw held
horizontally; but in our own day the pieces are
cut with great rapidity and exactness by a
fine saw made from a piece of watch-spring,
and worked vertically by a treadle. When