is indispensable. Surgeons, for instance, are
hoping that it will render services of the
highest class. For the decoration of interiors,
where silver turns black, aluminium will
shine transcendently. In proportion as the
cheap production of aluminium becomes more
and more an established fact, the more we
shall find it entering into household uses—for
travelling purposes, for instance, for which
its lightness is no small merit. It may
probably send tin to the right-about-face, drive
copper saucepans into penal servitude, and
blow up German-silver sky-high into nothing.
Henceforward, respectable babies will be born
with aluminium spoons in their mouths.

Such anticipations would be open to the
charge of exaggeration, if aluminium were
now to be produced only by the original
expensive method; but potassium is
entirely dispensed with. Aluminium is
obtained by treating its chloride with sodium,
—a substance whose chemical affinities are
very energetic, and which sets the aluminium
free by forming chloride of sodium. Accordingly,
the manufacture consists of two operations.
First, the preparation of chloride of
aluminium; secondly, the decomposition of
chloride of alumina by sodium.

This is not the place for further details
but it may be noted that sodium, which
was formerly dear, is now to be had at
a reasonable price. It is no exaggeration
to insist, for instance, on the extreme
innocuousness of the metal, and its
suitableness for many purposes where tin is
objectionable from the extreme facility with
which it is dissolved by organic acids; there
is no mistake about its superiority to silver
in resisting solutions of salt, and to other
kitchen utensils on which mixtures of salt
and vinegar have a corroding effect.

M. Deville claims for aluminium no more
than an intermediate rank between the
precious metals and the oxidisable metals, such
as tin and copper; but he feels assured that,
even in that subordinate office, it will be
found a most useful minister to human wants.
The French Minister of Public Instruction
has recognised the importance of the discovery,
by recommending the promotion of
the Messrs. Wöhler and Deville to be officers
of the Legion of Honour; urging that the
merit of the metallurgic chemists ought to be
thus acknowledged, because, in his opinion,
the moment had arrived when Science had
already fulfilled her part, and it was the turn
of manufacturing Art to begin.  It is true
that aluminium, in spite of its extreme profusion,
and of the matters employed in its
extraction, cannot yet compete in lowness of
price with copper and tin, or practically
even with silver.  Long industrial practice
alone will attain that object; but Science
has nobly fulfilled her duty.  She has
discovered the metal, specified its properties,
and organised the means of extracting it
on a large scale.  Scientific men have invented
all, both apparatus and manipulations, and
have made over to commercial manufacturers
the fruit of their industry with rare
disinterestedness.

The latest news is, that aluminium is now
made in quantities, in various Parisian
laboratories, though not very cheaply. What more
ought we reasonably to expect from a chickling
metal, that was only hatched the other
day, and which has yet to attain its full
growth and powers of flight?

A final word. If aluminium is hoping to
replace either gold and silver, or copper and
tin, or to take its own place without
replacing anything, it may do so in the Arts
and manufactures; but it never can in
literature or popular speech, unless it be fitted
with a new and better name. Aluminium,
or, as some write it, Aluminum, is neither
French nor English; but a fossilised part of
Latin speech, about as suited to the mouths
of the populace as an ichthyosauros cutlet or
a dinornis marrow-bone. It must adopt some
short and vernacular title. There would be
no harm in clay-tin, while we call iron-ware
tin; loam-silver might plead quicksilver, as
a precedent; glebe-gold would be at least as
historically true as mosaic gold. A skilful
word-coiner might strike something good out
of the Greek and Latin roots—argil, though
a Saxon etymology is far preferable. But
something in the dictionary line must be
attempted. I should like to know what
will become of poor " Aluminium " when it
gets into the mouths of travelling tinkers
or of Hebrew dealers in marine stores?

THE POOR CLARE.

IN THREE CHAPTERS. CHAPTER THE FIRST.

DECEMBER 12, 1747. My life has been
strangely bound up with extraordinary
incidents, some of which occurred before I had
any connection with the principal actors in
them, or, indeed, before I even knew of their
existence. I suppose, most old men are like
me, more given to look back upon their own
career with a kind of fond interest and
affecionate remembrance, than to watch the
events—though these may have far more
interest for the multitude—immediately
passing before their eyes. If this should
be the case with the generality of old people,
how much more so with me! If
I am to enter upon that strange story
connected with poor Lucy, I must begin a long
way back. I myself only came to the
knowledge of her family history after I knew
her; but, to make the tale clear to any one
else, I must arrange events in the order
in which they occurred—not that in which I
became acquainted with them.

There is a great old hall in the north east
of Lancashire, in a part they call the Trough
of Bolland, adjoining that other district named
Craven. Starkey Manor House is rather
like a number of rooms clustered round a