That cinder is the last vestige cf above fifty-six millions of one pound bank-notes, burned by the Bank of England after calling them in. Here is also a new instrument for the measurement of time, by W. Congreve, which may be kept in motion for thirty years, by a piece of chain, four feet long. Among the objects more especially proper to the place, the models of fortified towns, dockyards, &c., first attract attention by their size. They include Woolwich, Chatham, Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Deptford dockyards; Fort William, in Bengal; Quebec, including the spot where Wolfe fell, marked by a piece of the stone from the spot; Fort St. Philippe, in Minorca; Brimstone Hill and Citadel, in the Island of St. Christopher; Gibraltar, Rio de Janeiro, &c. Guns of every kind, of course, abound here, from the gigantic instrument or matchlock-which looks like a musket, but which no mortal man could lift, and which we find is for platform-firing, and supported artificially-down to the most elegant little weapon that ever an amateur Mars burned to discharge in the face of an enemy. The artillery-service is, as one would expect, profusely illustrated by tiny models of cannon, and mortars, and carriages, and equipments of every sort, ever used, or ever proposed to be used in war; the ordnance being in many cases mounted, and preceded by long trains of horses. There are also similar models of carriages bearing flat-bottomed pontoons, turned upside down, of artillery-waggons, of infernal machines, rockets, scaling-ladders, and-like a little wholesome "bread" to all this stimulating "sack"refuge beacons. Many of the cannons are extremely beautiful; but here is a refreshing contrast, a villainously-ugly piece from Cutch, looking like a round cannon suddenly crushed into a flat one; it was used for firing iron bars. Models again of machines for grinding powder, of foundries for cannon-making, sections of powder and other magazines, scientific, optical, and other instruments, a gigantic kettle-drum, weighing four and a half tons, models of bomb and fire-ships, a model of the Royal George, built in the dockyard we have lately quitted, and sunk at Spithead, firc-alarums, moveable targets, &c., help to compose the peculiar wealth of the Repository. The last objects we shall mention, are some relics of genuine old English ordnance, supposed to belong to the earliest period of the introduction of artillery into our service. They were found on the coast of Walney, Lancashire, and were dropped there, it is believed, by the fleet of Richard II., in 1379, on its expedition to Ireland, when twenty-five vessels were wrecked, and above a thousand men lost. No-there is one thing more we must name, this gigantic bunch of ordnance grape, looking like a lot of India-rubber bottles tied together by rope, and rudely smeared over with red paint. A pleasant messenger to send among a ship's crew, scattering, as it does, on its alighting, some forty shells, each vomiting forth its devilish contents in emulous contest with its neighbours, the whole changing life into death with a ghastly suddenness, through the extent of a vast semicircle. Touch it-how innocent and trivial it looks just now!

From the model instruments of destruction to the model-men who use them, or in other words, from the Repository Museum to the Royal Military Academy for Cadets, on the opposite side of the common, seems a natural and felicitous transition. This institution is for the education of the sons of officers and private gentlemen, who desire to obtain commissions in the Artillery or Engineering service. At present the numbers vary from 150 to 200. The expense is proportioned to the rank of the parents, if they are in the army; if not, the annual payment is £125. It may not be uninteresting to consider what is now esteemed the ideal of a military man's education. The range of study here has of late years been greatly extended and improved. It now comprises mathematics, with all its minor branches; natural philosophy; fortifications, permanent and field; and all matters relating to attacks, defences, sieges, outworks, mining, powder magazines, bridges, coast defences, towers, &c. ; drawing, including landscape, and plan, and map, and figure, and watercolours; chemistry; botany (there is a garden to aid botanical study); and lastly, all the ordinary branches of an English education, as history, geography, the French and German languages, &c. So much for the mind. The body, meantime, is subjected to all sorts of drilling, and exercising, and marching, to military practice with carbines, to mortar, howitzer, and eprouvette practice, at various ranges, manoeuvring with field-guns, sword-drill, formation of parades, also gymnastics, swimming, and athletic games, besides we know not how many etceteras. A rather fearful prospect for a timid youth to enter on! We have been told of one case, where for the first six months the young cadet made absolutely no progress, and was looked upon as an incorrigible dunce. Probably he was all the while only making up his mind to the place, and its demands. Suddenly he started onwards, overtook more advanced students, passed them, and presently was by the side of the masters themselves, perfectly acquainted with all they could teach him. The affair quite startled the Academy. The authorities talked about it, and wondered at it, and at last thought they would do something in it, by noticing it with some extraordinary mark of approbation: consequently a gold medal was cast and presented to the young student; an incident quite out of course, utterly unprecedented. Would not one suppose that when the gentleman cadet had mastered the foregoing routine he must have finished his studies at last?-that is by no means the case; he has only mastered the first or theoretical branch. He must next go to the Arsenal, and form one of the "practical class" established there, as a detachment from the Academy. There he remains for a twelvemonth, learning the use of all sorts of guns, carriages, and machines that are employed in the service; making drawings from actual measurements of every object, and accompanying them with original descriptions, in fullest detail. The casting of brass ordnance, the composition of gunpowder, the actual manufacture of rockets, fusees, &c., now become "fami

The Academy front presents three divisions, the one in the centre suggesting at a distance a likeness to the well-known central square turretted pile of the Tower of London, the others forming solid battlemented structures each higher in the middle than at the ends, and the whole three divisions forming a fine façade. A few six-pounders appropriately decorate the entrance. Here take place annually gymnastic games, which we are told are not unworthy of classic days. Prizes of books, telescopes, skates, and a host of other suitable articles are given to the winners in the different contests, which comprise foot-races, foot-races including hurdles to be leaped over, cutting lead, running high jumps, running wide jumps, high leaps with the pole, vaulting, and "putting" or throwing 24-pound shot. The prize of prizes is the Silver Bugle which is granted to, and worn for a year by, the cadet who is victor in the greatest number of games. A pretty scene, when the bugle with his name engraved on it, is first slung over the manly yet youthful shoulder. These annual contests are open to the public view, and must be well worth seeing. The Governor of the Academy is the Master-general of the Ordnance; practically the Academy is managed by a Lieutenant-governor, aided by inspectors and other officers, professors, and masters. The Professorship of Mathematics is generally held by one of our most distinguished mathematicians; the names of Dereham, Simpson, Hutton, and Gregory already stand upon the Academy's roll. The cadets themselves share to a certain extent in the business of government; some being appointed corporals over a number of their fellows; and each room, with three cadets, having a head who is responsible for the conduct of the whole. The hall of the Academy looks like a genuine piece of middle-age domestic architecture, though the whole pile was only erected in 1805 (the former academy being too small); it is in exquisite taste, of perfectly noble proportions, with richly stained glass windows, various suits of complete armour mounted high on the walls, and among the minor effects are some very pleasing and artistic ones, such as the continuous line of ornament along the walls, fo rmed by the belts of the cadets hung closely

both sides the centre of the hall, by weapons of war. The origin of the Academy may be said to be a small school which existed in the neighbouring village of Charlton before the year 1719, and which has gradually expanded into the institution we have described. Re-crossing the common, but in a more easterly direction, we pass the long-extended front of the Royal Artillery Barracks for foot and horse,—a pile of enormous size, and capable of accommodating between three and four thousand men. This front is formed of five divisions, connected by four others, standing back, and having before them arched Doric colonnades, which complete the line of front unbroken, to the extent of 1200 feet. The two cupolas in the centre, and the constantly varying line of roof, prevent the slightest idea of tameness or monotony. The barracks include a large chapel, three reading-rooms for (respectively) the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, a superb mess-room (60 feet by 50), riding-schools, &c. &c. On the parade in front are five remarkable pieces of ordnance; the centre one is of immense size, and was taken at the siege of Bhurtpoor. This parade is the grand promenade of Woolwich,-and certainly nothing can be well conceived more brilliant in military spectacle than the scene here frequently presented, as, for instance, when the Horse Artillery march forth on march forth on a grand field-day, with a complete battery of guns, each drawn by four or six horses, preceded by a brass band, under the eyes, perhaps, of a general officer and his staff and friends, and surrounded by a large concourse of persons.

We now finally direct our steps to the Arsenal, and the road leads us up past the Royal Ordnance Hospital and the barracks of the sappers and miners. At the Arsenal gate we are again met by the query as to our extraction, and again give a satisfactory answer. With the politest of bows, the attendant on duty says, "You may now go where you please to any part of the Arsenal;" excellent! we mentally exclaim; "only," he adds "you must not enter any of the buildings." The sense of the ludicrous nature of this climax grows on us as we proceed, through a sort of deserted path or road between houses and erections, until at last one fairly bursts out into a hearty peal of laughter at this specimen of arsenal wit. However, it is a fact that the buildings are all hermetically closed except to those who obtain an order from the Master-general; and from what we can learn such orders are by no means easy to be obtained by those who would make any other use of them, than merely to please their eyesight and gratify their curiosity. It is in these buildings, of course, that all the more interesting processes and manufactures are carried on. Information, however, does ooze out, even so as to supply the local guide-books. From these then we shall just borrow such a brief notice as we intended to have given (and which we regret

of which is large enough to hold nineteen tons of metal. Cannon are cast whole, and then bored. This operation is performed in other parts of the Arsenal, and is one of high mechanical skill and beauty. The boring of the interior, and the turning and polishing of the exterior, go on simultaneously; the gun revolving all the time on its axis, and the bore being completed by a centre-bit, placed at starting at the mouth. Every gun, after casting, is examined by magnifying-glasses outside, and by mirrors within. If no flaw be discovered, it is then further tested by being fired: that proof is decisive one way or the other. Iron ordnance is generally supplied on contract, by private manufacturers; but alterations of iron ordnance are carried on here. Thus an 18-pounder is sometimes enlarged into a 24. Everywhere in the Arsenal machinery is at work, performing the strongest and the most delicate operations.

The Laboratory is devoted to the business of preparing all sorts of ammunition except ball and blank cartridges, which, on account of their hazardous nature, have been removed to the eastern extremity of the Arsenal. The Model-rooms contain specimens of all the articles, in all stages of preparation, used in the manufacture of gunpowder, also of the grinding and siftingmills, and the machines and implements by which the manufacture itself is carried on. Here, too, are moulds for casting missiles of every kind, balls, bullets, chain, grape and canister shot, and shells,—some of the latter weighing 230 pounds. A leathern bag hanging on the wall, will show you how Ghuznee was won. It was by means of a few bags like this filled with gunpowder, and applied to the gateway, that an opening was torn away into that strong fortress, which admitted the storming party, and caused the Affghans the loss

of their apparently impregnable place. The military antiquary will here find many things to charm him; as, for instance, the specimens of implements of destruction of an earlier date, many of which have fallen into entire disuse. The percussion-cap manufactory possesses some very beautiful machines for the construction of that little and new but valuable auxiliary to the modern musket, the cap, which is cut out from a sheet of copper, at first in the shape of a Maltese cross, then put into rough form by boys. In the proof department metal fuses are made and fitted to shells, and the latter tested. The final test is proving them by air under water. The other chief departments are the powdermagazines and the gun-carriage department; in connection with the last are buildings for the manufacture of that terrible missile, the Congreve-rocket.

But though the interior of the buildings, their varied. contents, and scientific processes, are sealed to the visitor, the open spaces are not altogether destitute of objects to arrest his attention. There are two almost appalling items, the one of them consisting of the ordnance ranged in lines on the ground, to the number of twenty-eight thousand pieces of large cannon, the other of shot and shells pyramidally built up to the number of four millions! These two facts may give some idea of the resources of Woolwich, in case of our neighbours feeling inclined to substantiate Sir Francis Head's anticipatory alarms; and, starting from this idea of Woolwich, one may go on by degrees to vaguely reckon up the resources of the other places of the kind in England; and last, and by no means least, we may take into account what could be done by private manufacturers, when we remember that Birmingham alone during the last European war, produced with ease a musket a minute.

Resuming our place in the train, we speedily see on our left the marshes of Plumstead, with the river veiled in mist beyond. Here the authorities of the Arsenal come not unfrequently to look on, while inventors of all sorts of shells, and other infernal machines, test the schemes with which they hope to scatter death and ruin among hostile armies, and towns, and ships, and thereby build up their own lives and fortunes. On our right the eye rests upon a long-continued slope of gentle eminences, crowned by woods of varying outline. Again our pace increases, and the scenery, as in a moving panorama, floats rapidly by. There is Erith, with its gigantic excavation in the earth, looking like the bed of some new tower of Babel to be raised here—and which is proposed as one of the places of sepulture for London under the new arrangements; and there is a hop-garden, with the poles in bundles, collected into elegant pyramidal forms, like small tapering huts; and there Dartford, where Wat Tyler's insurrection broke out, and where--bane and antidote -the first English paper-mill was said to have been

established for the use of the press which can expose and show how to redress all social wrongs, and render unnecessary these terrible social explosions; and although great England, like little Dartford, relies too much on its powder mills, and the things pertaining thereto, and too little on its paper-mills, and their adjuncts, yet we believe the current is turning at last into the more wholesome direction. And there is Greenhithe, with its beautifully picturesque broken grounds, extending on both sides of the railway; and there in the distance is Gadshill-the scene of the exploits of Prince Hal, and Falstaff, and their followers; -and lastly, there is Gravesend, that cockney elysium! and which is really a precious breathing-ground for poor half-stifled London—and where it may now, in spite of Sir Francis Head's cry of alarm, wander about in a safety that did not always characterise the place; as for instance, in the days of Richard II., when a fleet of French galleys, had the impudence not only to come to Gravesend, burn its houses, &c., but to carry off the greater part of the astonished inhabit

now comes slowly into view in the form of a long range of stately and handsome-looking buildings apparently of recent erection, and rising from the very bosom of the water. And that appearance speaks but of the reality. In the time of Charles I. Sheerness was nothing but a swamp. Its position, however, at the corner of the Isle of Sheppey, and commanding the mouths of the Thames and Medway, early marked it out as an admirable site for a stronghold of Government, and as a place of refuge for its disabled vessels. Here the ships in ordinary lie far thicker than we have yet seen them, many as we have already noticed in our morning's voyage. Not less than forty ships of different sizes can we count; most of them, evidently, men-of-war, and some of them of the very largest class. Here is one, the Trafalgar, a seventy-four, in commission. We wish we could, without departing from the object of our visit, take our readers over it, and explain to them what a world of industry, and skill, and self-denial, and rigorous exactness and discipline opens to us in wandering through the interior of such

a ship; when crew, guns, and stores are all on board, when, in a word, the ship is in its natural state, fitted alike to sail or to fight :-but this may not be.

The Nore Light may now, we believe, be descried by those who possess good eyes; we can perceive only the sea, and are content. Its vastness, so far beyond all our power of comprehension, once more occupies our every thought, and fills us with an awe difficult to be shaken off. An acquaintance we have picked up now leaves us for a neighbouring ship. He has been absent on a two-days' leave, and is uneasy that he has (through his sailorlike mismanagement of all land affairs) extended the two days into three. He left the train at Gravesend for a few seconds, and was astonished to find it gone on his return,-had to telegraph arrangements about his box, containing his uniform (for he was now in a wide-awake hat and ordinary street garb,) and wait all night at Chatham for the next morning's boat to Sheerness. We wish him a lucky oversight of his fault, or at least a mild reproof; for he is of a spirit as buoyant as the floor he treads during the