number of handkerchiefs, according to their width. They are also of three degrees of fineness. The weavers of this class are poor, and say that they cannot afford to make the cloth on their own account. They in general receive the thread from the women in the neighbourhood, and work it up into cloth for hire. For weaving a piece that is worth 8 fanams, or 5s. 44d., they get 24 fanams, or 1s. 8d. This occupies a workman four or five days; so that his daily gains are from four to five pence. They never cultivate the ground. The whalliaru make a coarse, white, strong cloth called parcalla. It serves the poorer male inhabitants, throughout the country, as a covering for the upper parts of their bodies. The pieces are from 24 to 28 cubits long, and from 14 to 13 broad, and as usual of three different degrees of fineness. Weavers of this kind live scattered in the villages, and frequently hire themselves out as day-labourers to farmers, or other persons who will give them employment. At the weekly markets the cotton wool is bought up, in small quantities, by the poor women of all casts, except the Brahmans; for these never spin, nor do their husbands ever plough the soil. The women of all other casts spin, and at the weekly markets sell to the weavers the thread that is not wanted for family use. The thread that is brought from Balahari, and other places toward the Krishna, is much coarser than that which the women here spin. Such is the account given me by the various weavers ; but the cloth agents, who are all of a cast called Nagarit, say, that it is not customary to make advances for goods of an ordinary kind, unless the demand from a distance be very great. When this is the case, or when goods of an uncommonly high price are wanted, in order to enable the manufacturer to purchase the raw materials, one half of the value is advanced. The credit is for three months, and for this time there is no interest paid; but if the goods are not then delivered, monthly interest is demanded at the rate of per cent. until the contract is fulfilled. The commission here on the purchase of goods is only two per cent., and the agent is answerable for all the sums advanced to the weavers. 8 On On confronting some of the richer Shaynagaru with the Nagarit, they acknowledged that this statement was true. The places from whence agents are at present employed to purchase cloths are, Nagara, Chatrakal, Seringapatam, Chin'-raya-pattana, Sira, Madhugiri, and Devund-hully. A small quantity of cotton and silk cloth for women's jackets goes to the lower Carnatic. This is the account of the Nagarit; but I have good reason to think, that a very large quantity of goods, especially of the silk manufacture called combawutties, are sent to that country, and are much in request among the women of the rich Brahmans. The Nagarit say, that the merchants, who import cotton, take away silk cloths for the dress of the Brahmans of both sexes, and also blue and red cotton stuffs; but not in a quantity sufficient to repay the whole cotton. During the former government of the Rája's family, much cloth went from this neighbourhood to Tanjore, Negapatam, and other parts of the southern Carnatic: but since to that period, this commerce has been entirely at a stop. The Mangalore merchants send hither for every kind of cloth. The dress of that country requires cloth only eight cubits long. The pieces intended for that market have therefore a blank left in their middle. In Hyder's time there was a great exportation of cloth to Calicut: but the troubles in Malabar have put an entire stop to this branch of commerce. [To be continued.] LIII. On the Means of gaining Power in Mechanics. SIR, To Mr. Tilloch. In reply to the observations and opinion of one of your correspondents in Number cxvii. of your Magazine, relative to the means of gaining mechanical power, I regret having to remark, that instead of the instruction, or satisfactory information, to be expected from an academician, he has only given us antiquated and superfluous objections and conclusions, conclusions which are quite erroneous and ill founded for as to the former, I had pointedly remarked that this novelty (of gaining power) was inadmissible on the established principles of mechanics: and respecting the latter, his arguments, against his own supposition, concerning latent properties in the mechanical powers, of which I never had any idea, by no means proved the impossibility of my discovering what had escaped the superior abilities of other men; because things full as unlikely do sometimes happen. Nor is he more successful in his confident assertion, that the engine I have constructed will, at a certain period, require as much external power to restore it to its former state, as it had apparently gained power beyond the laws of mechanics by its first effort; because this engine is announced as an exception to the rules on which he forms his opinions: and the facts are, that it effects what the established maxims held out as being impossible, and that it does not require such great external power to restore it as he supposes. Hence it may properly be called a novelty. It is, however, what has long been sought, and what great numbers of well-informed geniuses in this and other countries are even now assiduously endeavouring to gain, with the established principles at their fingers' ends. To give a drawing or particular description of this engine in any Magazine, or taking out a patent, would be making it too public, by putting our continental neighbours, who are now most closely confederated against us, and intent on doing us all the injury in their power, on the same footing with ourselves; and perhaps give them advantages, which, being the birth-right of my countrymen, shall, as far as rests with me, be wholly secured to them. It will therefore suffice, for the immediate gratification of your readers particularly interested in this subject, to state in general terms, that this engine is a singular, though very simple, combination and disposition of the mechanical powers. I take this opportunity to request the favour of an answer from some of your ingenious and obliging correspondents to the following question: Is it possible so to dispose a moving power, (suppose a Vol. 30. No. 119. April 1808. S one one pound weight,) as that, during its progress through a given space, its force shall be constantly increasing, and thereby produce an accelerated motion exceeding that of the moving power at least ten to one? Bracknell, Berks, March 22, 1808. I am, sir, your very humble servant, E. VIDAL. LIV. SIR, On the Identity of Silex and Oxygen. By [Continued from p. 171.] To Mr. Tilloch. LIME, in its general attractions, and in its capacity to neutralize acids, possesses a very superior energy to clay, and, therefore, is a more decided salifiable base: hence, I shall give it the preference in any example, in which an earth, as belonging to a distinct genus, is to be contrasted with silex, whose habitudes and character are so totally dissimilar. Nothing is so frequent in nature as an association of two or more contending elements to form one homogeneous compound, or to effect some material purpose: thus, an acid with an alkali, sulphur with a metal, and metals with earths, may be adduced as instances, in which this coexistence of opposites is, perhaps, as essential as two contrary poles to the same maguet, or the negative and positive wires of the Voltaic pile. This proximity is no where more obvious and frequent than in substances composed of silex and lime, in which the caustic pungency and other inherent distinctions of the lime are coerced into such a state of neutrality, as to evade every mode of detection, unless the purity of the compound be destroyed and the lime eliminated. Silex is not only found alone with lime, but follows it throughout, and in nearly all its modifications; and, generally speaking, this seems the primary cause of the saturated condition of lime in all the native carbonates, such as in chalk, ehalk, marble, lime-stone, and other fossil bodies, of which carbonate of lime forins an extensive portion, so much so, as to render this class of minerals extremely important in all geological discussions. This singular coincidence has not escaped notice, and many very respectable men have advanced opinions upon the subject. It has, indeed, been supposed, that there is a transmutation of one of these elements into the other, or a graduation of lime into silex; and it is asserted that the recent formation of flint had been perceived, near the surface, in a calcareous mountain, in which, also, animal and vegetable substances were found petrified by the silex; and that rhomboidal crystals were likewise present, passing from the state of carbonate of lime to nearly pure silex. It is evident, such a theory as this is not tenable, but must be involved in difficulty, since it assumes a case, of all others, the most improbable; for, according to these premises, we are compelled to admit, that the diamond, the oxygen and the lime, that is to say, the real ingredients of the chalk, all contribute to the formation of silex, which is, avowedly, one of the most perfectly indecomposable of elementary bodies, and, certainly, much more so than limea This conversion of lime into silex is, I presume, quite inconsistent with general facts, and contrary to every object in nature which contains these two ingredients among its constituent principles. In chalk particularly, which is one of the most plentiful of nature's productions, as well as in all the other carbonates of lime, there is, usually, a very copious assortment of silex, under one shape or another; and this is either so intimately blended as to be hardly perceptible to the sight, and, often, ean only be extracted by analysis; or it occurs in the form of sand, gravel, or what, in common terms, are called flintstones. It is necessary to observe, that these stones are chiefly of an obtuse and rounded figure, and never pointed and angular; they are frequently found alone, and, from their appearance and other circumstances, seem to have suffered a diminution of their original bulk, by yielding up a portion, |