up from the top of the black tower, blown to and fro by the wind, nobody near or heeding it. When the road brought them to the other side of the tower, they saw an open red arch underneath, which seemed to be filled with a sloping bed of fire.

Harry had often seen a lime-kiln burning in the night. "It is a lime kiln, I do believe, only of a different shape from what I have seen.

"No," said his father; "but that is a sensible guess."

"Then it is a foundery! I have it now. I remember the picture in the Cyclopædia. It is a foundery for melting iron or brass. Now I begin to understand it all.”

"And there are others of the same sort," said Lucy, "coming in view. And what is that black shadowy form moving up and down regularly, and continually, like the outline of a steam engine?"

“Like the great beam. It is a steam engine," cried Harry. "I see others. There they are, going on all night long,

working, working, working, always doing their duty, by themselves, and of themselves; how very-"

"Sublime," said Lucy.

His father told Harry, that he was quite right in supposing that these were founderies. As to the fires, he said, most of them were low ridges of coal, which were burning into coke, for the use of the forges. The process was very simple. After the coals were set on fire, a man was employed to cover them with ashes, through which the smoke could escape, till they were sufficiently burned. Coke, he told them, gave out a more steady and intense heat after the gas and smoke were driven off. Some of the fires, he added, might perhaps proceed from the refuse small coal, which were known occasionally to ignite spontaneously, and were suffered to burn, as there was no danger of their doing any mischief in this waste land.

When this explanation was given, Lucy's interest a little diminished, with the mys

tery; but Harry's increased when he considered the wonderful reality.

"I shall like to see this country by day light," said Harry; "and to learn what those numbers of steam engines are doing." "That must be for to-morrow," said his father.

WHEN they visited the fiery moor by daylight, they saw only a black dreary waste, with half burning, half smothering heaps of dross, coal, and cinders. Clouds of smoke of all colours, white, yellow, and black, from the chimneys of founderies and forges darkening the air; the prospect they could not see, for there was none. It was a dead flat, the atmosphere laden with the smell of coal and smoke. The grass, the hedges, the trees, all blackened. The hands and faces of every man, woman, and child they met, begrimed with soot! The very sheep blackened! not a lamb even with a lock of

white wool, or a clean face. Lucy said, that it was the most frightful country she had ever beheld. Harry acknowledged, that there was nothing beautiful here to be seen; but it was wonderful, it was a sort of sublime. He could not help feeling a great respect for the place, where steam engines seemed to abound, and, in truth, to have the world almost to themselves. These laboured continually, in vast and various works, blowing the huge bellows of the furnaces of smelting houses, forges, and founderies, raising tuns of water each minute, to drain the depths of the coal mines. The strokes of the beams of the steam engines were heard at regular intervals, and the sound of the blast of the furnaces at a distance. As they approached the founderies the noises grew louder and louder, till, as they entered the buildings, the roaring of the draft was tremendous. Lucy, involuntarily holding her breath, looked up to her father; she saw his lips move, but she could not hear what he said. She held fast by

his hand, and stood still. She saw an immense furnace, full, as she thought, of liquid fire, but it was red-hot liquid metal. One man with brawny arms, bare up to the shoulders, and a face shining with perspiration, was carrying this fiery liquid in a large ladle. Another poured it out into moulds of sand. Some men with white caps on their heads, and pale fire-lighted visages, were hurrying to and fro, carrying, in long-handled tongs, masses of red-hot metal. Others, seen in the forge at a distance, were dragging out red-hot bars, while two were standing with huge hammers raised, waiting the moment to give their alternate blows. Lucy tried to make Harry understand, that she thought the men were like Cyclops; but she could not make him hear the words. In this place, it seemed in vain for human creatures to attempt to make use of their voices. Here wind and fire, the hammer, the bellows, the machinery, seemed to engross the privilege of being heard. The men went on