The bark is cleft longitudinally, at certain intervals, down to the crown of the root, with an axe, of which the handle terminates in a wedge; and a circular incision is then made from each extremity of the longitudinal cuts. The bark is then beaten, to detach it from the liber; and it is lifted up by introducing the wedged handle, taking care to leave sufficient of the inner laminæ upon the wood, without which precaution the tree would certainly die. The bark being thus removed, it is divided into convient lengths; and it is then flattened, and slightly charred, to contract the pores. This substance is the rough cork of commerce; and it is thus fit to be cut into floats, stoppers, shoe-soles, and other articles of domestic use, by the manufacturer. The cork of the best quality is firm, elastic, and of a slightly red colour Cork burned in vessels of a particular construction gives the substance called Spanish black.

MUSIC.

If there is a charm on earth, which, more than any other, serves to elevate the affections, to tranquilize the mind, and to enrapture the feelings, it is music. We speak of music as it should be, in its purest and most exalted sense; and not of those unhallowed strains, in the use of which music is polluted and degraded, by being made the vehicle and the stimulant of earthly and unholy passions. Music, in its best exercise, is a heavenly science, suited to the purest, the most evangelical and seraphic natures. As we look abroad into creation, we find every thing constructed on the most harmonious scale, and in many instances, melodies are continually breaking forth from the perfect works of God. The whisper of the breeze, and the roaring of the storm the tinkling of the sea shells, as they are agitated by the regularly returning waves, and the dashing of the impetuous cataract-the song of the robin and the shriek of the eagle-all these, and a thousand other voices of animated existence, are full of melody and song. To the Poet of Nature, and the Worshipper of God, all things appear full of harmony, and seem

to be graduated to the most perfect scale of music. a great poet has beautifully said

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,

As

The universal scale began;

From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.

In an age so generally well informed as the present on most subjects, we deem it a waste of time and talent to employ any argument to prove that music is an elevated study, worthy of the cultivation of every pure, devout, and intelligent mind. No one who has read the Bible with an understanding heart-no one who has felt the exalting influence of music on his own mind-no one who has a heart attuned to melody, and capable of appreciating the harmony of existencies can doubt the propriety of cultivating music as a useful science-a valuable art. Referring to it only in its social relation, it possesses a property of elevation and refinement, which has power to soften obdurate feelings, and win the soul to the sympathies of gentle life. As a bard of social feelings has said—

Music! oh, how faint, how weak,
Language fades before thy spell!

Why should feeling ever speak,

When thou canst breathe her soul so well?

Friendship's balmy words may feign,

Loves are e'en more false than they;

Oh 'tis only music's strain

Can sweetly soothe, and not betray!

But music has a higher, a more enduring power. It is employed by the purest spirits in the worship of a Being worthy of the exercise of the most exalted feciings and capacities of the human and angelic mind.-The Church, in all ages, under the old and new dispensations, has practised it-the universal testimony of devout hearts has given it à sanction and it has formed the employment of angelic beings in past existence, and we are taught to believe will constitute the exercise of purified spirits in future eternity.

co-ral strand, Where Afric's sun-ny fountains,

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Roll down their gold-en sand; From many an ancient

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river,

From ma - ny a pal - my plain

INTERESTING EXTRACTS.

SICKNESS.

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood; that softens the heart, and brings it back to the feelings of infancy. Who that has languished, even in advanced life, in sickness and despondency; who that has pined on a weary bed in the neglect and loneliness of a foreign land; but has thought on the mother "that looked on his childhood," that smoothed his pillow and administered to his helplessness; Oh! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son, that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment, she will glory in his fame and exult in his prosperity; and, if misfortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to her from misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace; and if all the world besides cast him off, she will be all the world to him.

STUDY OF NATURE.

If we look, says Sir Humphrey Davy, with wonder upon the great remains of human works, such as the columns of Palmyra, broken in the midst of the desert; the temples of Pæstum, beautiful in the decay of twenty centuries; or the mutilated fragments of Greek sculpture in the Acropolis of Athens, or in our own museum, as proofs of the genius of artists, and the power and riches of nations now past away; with how much deeper a feeling of admiration must we consider those grand monuments of nature which mark the revolutions of the globe; continents broken into islands; one land produced, another destroyed; the bottom of the ocean becomes a fertile soil; whole races of animals extinct, and the bones and exuvia of one class covered with the remains of another: and upon the graves of past generations-the marble or rocky tombs, as it were of