hour,
But how she rose with deadly might,
And, with a maniac's power,

Fought with her murd'rers till they broke
Her slender arm in twain:
That none could e'er discover where
The maiden's corse was lain.

When wand'ring by that noiseless wood,
Forsaken by the bee,
Each rev'rend chronicler displays
The bent and treach'rous tree.

Pointing the barkless spot to view,
Which Mary's hand embrac'd,
They shake their hoary locks, and say,
"It ne'er can be effac'd!"

* * H.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY.

_Tanning_.

The tanner steeps the skin at first in a weak infusion of bark, until it
has acquired a nutmeg brown colour, and then he gradually increases the
strength of the steeping liquors, and after a time he draws the skin
out, and finds that it is converted into leather. A thick piece of hide
requires ten, twelve, or fourteen months, to be converted into good
leather; and when you consider the length of time consumed in the
process, and the great capital necessarily employed, you cannot feel
surprised that various plans should have been proposed to lessen both.
It was proposed to tan with warm instead of cold liquors; and although
the tan appeared to promote the skins in a shorter time, the quality of
the leather was so much injured, that it was soon given up. Then it was
tried to force the tan through the pores of the skin, by employing great
pressure; but this was not found to answer. But you may ask why the
tanner does not put the skins at once into a strong liquor? The reason
is, that the exterior surface of the skin would soon become tanned, and
the central part would remain untanned, which, in a short time, would
begin to rot and decay, and the leather so treated would soon fall to
pieces. The tanner, therefore, judges of the perfection of the tanning
by cutting through the leather; and if he finds it of an uniform brown
colour, without any white streak in the centre, he considers that the
process has been successfully conducted. It would require much time to
describe all the operations of the _tan-yard_, but many of them are
interesting, as regards the chemical agents employed. I might have
mentioned to you, that the mode of preparing the skin for tanning, is
first to soak it in lime-water, by which the hair is easily detached;
but the cuticle and under part of the skin, the cellular substance, are
scraped off after it