s prismatic balance is now
considered the best.

[6] See Mr. Folkes's speech to the Royal Soc., 30th Nov., 1749.

[7] No trustworthy lunar tables existed at that time. It was not until
the year 1753 that Tobias Mayer, a German, published the first lunar
tables which could be relied upon. For this, the British Government
afterwards awarded to Mayer's widow the sum of 5000L.

[8] Sir Isaac Newton gave his design to Edmund Halley, then
Astronomer-Royal. Halley laid it on one side, and it was found among
his papers after his death in 1742, twenty-five years after the death
of Newton. A similar omission was made by Sir G. B. Airy, which led to
the discovery of Neptune being attributed to Leverrier instead of to
Adams.

CHAPTER IV.

JOHN LOMBE: INTRODUCER OF THE SILK INDUSTRY INTO ENGLAND.

"By Commerce are acquired the two things which wise men accompt of all
others the most necessary to the well-being of a Commonwealth: That is
to say, a general Industry of Mind and Hardiness of Body, which never
fail to be accompanyed with Honour and Plenty. So that, questionless,
when Commerce does not flourish, as well as other Professions, and when
Particular Persons out of a habit of Laziness neglect at once the
noblest way of employing their time and the fairest occasion for
advancing their fortunes, that Kingdom, though otherwise never so
glorious, wants something of being compleatly happy."--A Treatise
touching the East India Trade (1695).

Industry puts an entirely new face upon the productions of nature. By
labour man has subjugated the world, reduced it to his dominion, and
clothed the earth with a new garment. The first rude plough that man
thrust into the soil, the first rude axe of stone with which he felled
the pine, the first rude canoe scooped by him from its trunk to cross
the river and reach the greener fields beyond, were each the outcome of
a human faculty which brought within his reach some physical comfort he
had never enjoyed before.

Material things became subject to the influence of labour. From the
clay of the ground, man manufactured the vessels which were to contain
his food. Out of the fleecy covering of sheep, he made clothes for
himself of many kinds; from the flax plant he drew its fibres, and made
linen and cambric; from the hemp plant he made ropes and fishing nets;
from the cotton pod he fabricated fustians, dimities, and calicoes.
From the rags of these, or from weed and the shavin