turesque situation. At this place is a clean-looking, though small inn, and a waterfall over rocks in a dashing style. The falls are supposed to be sufficient to prevent the ascent of salmon. The bed of the river also presents a study for geologists. The strata of naked rocks are horizontal on one side of the river, and on the other they are nearly vertical. The change may be distinctly seen to take place in the middle of the river, agreeably to what Mr. Whitehurst has said, and my own experience confirms it. Mr. Morris has erected a fishing-house where salmon find it difficult to ascend, and he catches them upon hooks fixed to the end of a pole: when the fish present themselves at the surface of the water, ready to make their leap, is the moment to hook them. The rock-scenery here is very grand, and from it, for five or six miles towards Fort Augustus, (thanks to Mr. Morris!) the road is in as much perfection as gravel-walks in a well-kept garden. Fort Augustus is of no strength, nor of utility in any other respect than to the officers of it. We were told while we were here, what we are unwilling to believe, that Mr. Jessop is the chief engineer of the Caledonian Canal, and he has never attended it; that Mr. Telford is the second engineer, and he views it once a-year, early in each sessions of Parliament: a Mr. Davidson is the third engineer, and he visits the place once amonth. Can these things be so? We willingly hope not. But what other or better conclusion can be come to, after reading the following recital of facts which came within our view. Red sandstones are used for facing the locks and inverts, in which is laid slight fir bond timber in two tiers, where it cannot be of any use; but, as part of it has dropped out of its place, it has left a cavity, alike injurious to the durability and ap. pearance of the work. Instead of this useless bond, there ought to be guardpieces of stout elm fixed to the face of the walls, (not let into them,) as has been done at the West-India and London Docks. This very perishable stone is said to be paid for at the extravagant rate of 3s. 6d. per foot. The facing is badly done, and the landties, which ought to be dove-tailed, are not of that figure, but square; consequently, they have no hold, and, for want of it, are of much less use. The vertical joints of the stone-facing are without mortar; and, as an excuse for that omission, a workman said they 66 rake these joints after the work has settled, and then point them with Roman cement. If that were true, it would be an unpardonably bad method of doing such work; but we examined it, and found it is not always done, even in that insufficient manner, and, consequently, the work is not water-tight. The works of this canal are executed with bad materials, and with insufficient judgment; the parts early erected already want, and they will continue to want, repairs, before the latter parts are finished. We enquired for Roman cement; and, after some delay, occasioned by moving other materials, the person found less than a bushel of it in the bottom of a sack; but he assured us that thirty or more casks of it have been there at a time. We then conversed with a mason cutting stone for the gates of a lock, and he admitted the superior fitness of hard stone for that work; but he added, harder stone would require more labour to work it." The locks are forty feet wide at their top, and of great length, supplied with plenty of water. They ought to have been built with granite, or whinstone, which is even more durable than granite, and without timber; especially as these everlasting stones abound to an excess that is a nuisance in that part of the Highlands. The sand-stones they are using are so very perishable, that several of them, in the rounded entrance to the locks, are crushed at this time; which is long before the locks can be finished. Engineers are supposed to be legally responsible for the goodness of the materials and general soundness of the works done under their superintendance; but we ask, of what use is personal responsibility in an expenditure of two millions of British money? There are several hundred men employed, perhaps between 300 and 500; and we were informed, they never taste wheaten bread, meat, beer, or spirits. Their diet is oatmeal and potatoes, with milk and water. They are stout hearty Highlanders, and are supported under their hard labour by such apparently slender dict, at the expense of about sixpence per day: they earn from 2s. 4d. to 2s. 8d. daily; the average may be called 2s. 6d. In this manner they are paid 15s. per week, and spend only 3s. 6d. consequently, they save 11s. 6d. which, we were told, accumulates, in the course of one summer, to 127. or 147. Such of them as are without families, place this sum at interest, and repeat it annually, with compound interest, till it amounts to a sum sufficient to support them, with very little labour, during the rest of their lives. This demonstrates the extreme extravagance and folly of allowing paupers, in English workhouses, any better or other diet than potatoes and oatmeal, with, perhaps, equal portions of milk and water. Such a diet would thin our workhouses of their inhabitants, and they ought to be so thinned; any thing more, in a workhouse, operates as a premium for persons to quit labour and go into a workhouse and English workhouses have 'been so filled. The inhabitants of Scotland ought to take the most special care not to introduce poor-rates into that country, as they are the destroyers of industry and economy. On examining the contents of the parish-chest of Lambeth, the 27th of December 1819, it was discovered, that a rate was made the second day of June 1702, for the relief of the poor, at one halfpenny on the pound-rent, and it was calculated to raise in that parish 201. 15s. for one whole year. From such a small beginning, 117 years ago, the poor-rates have gradually increased to 120 halfpence, or five shillings in the pound; by which 40,000l. are collected of the inhabitants of that parish, and expended on the paupers and persons who manage that fund at this time. On the second day's ride along the borders of the Caledonian Canal, the mountains and waters were as fine as they were yesterday, but with less shrub bery; some of them are pastured by sheep and cows. Ben-nevis came distinctly in sight, seven or eight miles before we arrived at it. Both the plains and the mountains near Ben-nevis abound with slate; but Ben appeared to us, at a mile or two distance, to be whin stone, in which some of the lower parts were columnar. Ben, and two other mountains near it, sent up a vapour which hung over them separately, with all the appearance of clouds. This is a common occurrence at lofty mountains, and it is frequently mistaken for ordinary clouds, attracted out of their regular course to the mountains. The inn called Letter Finley, where we were under the necessity of refreshing our horses, two hours, in the middle of the day, is a wretched hovel, kept by persons half naked. The house at Fort William, where we could not do otherwise than lodge one night, is also MONTHLY MAG, No. 336. a miserable place. But the village has about twenty boats employed in the herring fishery; they rowed to sea, with their nets, while we were looking on, immediately after high-water in LochLinney. This is a fine loch of salt-water, with a mountain on the side opposite the village, and an agreeable road along the side next the village. The sea-beach is also quite clean, and this village would be an agreeable bathing-place, if it could be more cheaply approached; but the inu, as well as the inhabitants, forbid every thing of that kind. The next morning, as we proceeded along the border of Loch-Linney, we were repeatedly amused by a seal, or possibly more than one, which raised its head from under the water, and continued it steadily above it for several minutes. We had no means of discovering whether it was reconnoitring for shoals of herrings or not. This continued during one stage; and that brought us to the ford at Balahulish, where there is a very bad iun, and kept by a man, who tries every means to detain his customers, and charge them three times as much as he ought. Having paid this man for a bottle of whiskey, which was neither ordered nor seen, in addition to his other impositions, under the vile pretence of its being for the watermen, and being forded over, we soon came to a slate-quarry, which we explored, and brought away some curious specimens: there were a great many men at work; and we were told of upwards of two hundred being employed in this quarry. We then drove along Glen-coe, a long chasm, where the mountains on each side of the carriage are alpine, and patched with snow. This stage brought us to an inn called King's-house, and there we were amused by seeing about a hundred goats milked; this was done upon the road, for enclosure there is not any, and the whole place is only fit for the lowest and the worst people. This house stands in the midst of a very extensive waste, in sight of the highest mountains, at only the distance of two or three miles, where we were told are some wild red deer. We were under the necessity of abiding here during the night, between the 11th and 12th of August; when this house was full of poachers, or others, prepared for grouse shooting the following morning. Two or three beds in a room, and two or more persons in each bed, was the ot der of the night; and to these strangers, P were were added pointer dogs, in the best chamber, which was appointed for us. I declined the wretched apartment, and such a mixture of company, preferring our carriage. I got into it; and, having fastened its doors, I lodged there for the night. This probably saved the carriage from being plundered, as there was an attack made on it between three and four o'clock in the morning; but my presence put an end to it; and we quitted King's-house the following morning at six o'clock. About six or eight miles from King's-house, towards Inverore. ham, we passed a marque and tent, upon a piece of selected heath, ready for a party of gentlemen to resort to, for the amusement of shooting grouse. This seemed to us vastly superior to lodging at any of the hovels, or inns as they are called; which may be met with once in a dozen miles, though only along the military roads, in this part of Scotland. These inns cannot be called hedge-ale houses, owing to the entire absence of fences; but, in the south of England, they would be deemed hedge-alehouses of the very lowest class. They are built with peat, upon heath, without any enclosure for yard, garden, or field. They mostly have a bad stable, and the worst hay, made of bents, cut from the adjoining waste land; but they have neither horses nor corn for horses; therefore these must previously be provided, and go along with the carriage; consequent ly, a day's journey is limited to two or three stages: and, to add to our other inconveniences at Inveroreham, we were under the necessity of shaving and dressing without a looking-glass in a breakfast-parlour, in which were two beds. While we were doing these things, a genteel party, said to consist of Lord Clancarty and others, stopped at the same inn. It comprised two rooms, say a kitchen and bed-room; the latter without half a sash window, but that was of no consequence to us, as we were there in the month of August. Both these rooms were upon the ground, and the bed-room, as a luxury, had a boarded floor; the other had a dirt floor, and a fire of pcat in the middle of it. His lordship requested to be accommodated with a moiety of our room, and we acceded to it; but it was then discovered, that the house was not provided with a second table and set of breakfast-cups. For such misery no remedy was at hand; therefore, his lordship took fresh air till we had finished A PAMPHLET was lately put into my hands, entitled "A short Account of a Patent lately taken out by Sir William Congreve, bart. for a new Principle of Steam-engine." Now, as it too often happens, that one man labonrs, and another enters into his la bours, I wish to state, through the me dium of your Magazine, that I saw a model of a steam-engine, worked exactly on the same principle as Sir W. C.'s, exhibited by Mr. Webster, in a lecture of November, 1816, at the Lyceum, Lion steam-engines, delivered on the 21st verpool; and, if I am not very much mistaken, Mr. Webster said it was a thought of his own; at the same time remarking, that it might be employed to work a jack, as it would, at the same time, afford hot water for culinary purposes. This is the same steam-engine which Sir Wm. Congreve says, "I have able attention and expense in the asbeen induced to bestow very considercomplishment of this desideratum.""As I am now satisfied, by repeated experiments, of the practicability, &c." "The principle upon which I apply, &c." Now, sir, I must observe, that it is singular, that, two years after Mr. Webster had exhibited his model, (and he might have exhibited it many years before I saw it,) Sir Wm. C. should pop ou the same plan. I may add, that, two years ago, I prepared a steam-engine on the same plan as Sir Wm. Congreve's, or rather, I copied Mr. WebA. K.. ster's. Liverpool; Dec. 11, 1819. To the Editor of the Monthly Magaziné. ure, which the Finance Committee had the Sinking Fund for 1819. Such is the stated as under: result of the last year's system,-a result that ought to cause a minister of finance to tremble. But let us now see the prospect of the present year; and we are already enabled to judge with some accuracy: 45,636,676 The Interest on the Debt is Interest on National Debt, in- £43,475,708 2,260,968 Together Charge on Exchequer Bills 1,760,000 Miscellaneous Army, Navy, &c. 1,200,000 16,972,000 Total 66,068,676 From which may be deducted twelve millions of unapplied Sinking Fund. From this I endeavoured to shew, that, by reducing the five per cent. on terms agreeable to the holders, by savings on the Civil List, and by reduction on the expenditure of the army, navy, &c. the whole charge might be brought down to 63,036,4007. ; but that, even thien, the whole amount of the income would not reach, or at least not exceed, 56,000,000l. But no efforts have been made to reduce the five per cents. On the Civil List an increase of 150,000l. has been already brought in; and, instead of a saving on the expenditure of Army and Navy, we find the former increased 10,000 men, and the latter 1,000, I noticed, in my last, the uncertainty of the Minister's measures, in his provision for last year's deficiency, but which he made good, by taking twelve millions of the Sinking Fund, and by borrowing the rest on loan. As he bad left of this fund something short of three millions, he laid on new taxes to the amount of three millions, in order to secure what he called an effective Sinking Fund of five millions per annum; I will therefore first enquire, what effect this opera tion has had on the National Debt; and next, what prospect we haye for the present year. By the return made by Mr. Hagham, secretary to the Commissioners for the National Debt, made up to the end of last year, it appears that, On the 1st of Jan. 1820, the Unredeemed Debt was £791,867,510 On the 1st of Jan. 1819 776,740,402 Increase The Interest of the same to the Public and the Fund, on the 1st of Jan. 1820 On the 1st of Jan. 1819 15,126,908 45,719,296 43,907,037 Increase of interest 1,842,259 And this, after allowing the full effect of 55,500,000 Leaving a balance of 11,710,678 And this we take, on a presumption that the revenue will keep up to its present amount; that the Irish revenue will not fall more than 500,000l.; and that the new taxes will yield the sum they are estimated at; and, even suppose these sanguine hopes should be realized, the Minister bas still to provide, to pay the Bank, 5,000,000l.; for Exchequer Bills, due in October, 1,500,000l.; which will make a sum of eighteen or nineteen millions. On this sum interest must be paid, and one per cent. for a Sinking Fund, which will require another load of new taxes to the ainount of upwards of 1,100,0007. We have now had a peace of five years, and the increase of taxes has been at the rate of one million a-year: where can this end? It may be presumed, that an increase of new will naturally diminish the receipt of the old taxes; for the additional demand will produce a system of economy; and, if this extend to the lower order of people, it is impossible to say where it may end: and it is evident, by the last annual returns, that the duties on malt, on spirits, on tea, all or most of which they consume, have fallen off, instead of increasing. The Tables in the next page will exhibit the various details and items, according to the last official returns. P. E. 917,414 2,208,976 787,426 2,303,778 6,217,574 Revenue of Great Britain, in the Years ended 5th January, 1819, and 5th January, 1820. 5th April. 5th July. 10th October 5th January. Total, 1820. 5th April. 5th July. 10th October. 5th January. Total, 1819. £1,991,718 1,568,030 2,795,889 1,530,779 7,886,416 1,685,540 1,335,073 1,346,138 1,953,437 6,319,988 4,248,082 4,658,989 4,927,456 5,113,923 18,948,450 4,358,557 4,704,195 4,959,207 5,746,359 19,768,318 1,588,759 1,599,814 1,672,165 1,530,532 6,391,270 1,570,757 1,534,725 1,575,437 1,503,322 6,184 239 336,000 324,000 819,000 1,339,000 355,000 367,000 375,000 378,000 360,000 1,475,000 6,176,529 835,246 2,257.960)| 781,448 2,301,875 178,295 441,220 181,801 408,366 1,209,682 148,440 444.758 198,177 442,955 1,234,325 73,270 112,282 49,150 133,381 368,083 75,245 62,785 77,628 177,074 392,732 713 3,198 36,454 44,735 85,100 95,797 39,461 19,252 11,491) 166,001 .... 11,946 289,114 873,865 934,885 2,109,810 434,010 909,566 1,407,029| 273,018 3,023,623 Excise .... 6,520 106,316 134,124 299,780 546,740 82,827 118,101 127,204 72,379 400,511 869,974 588,276 620,805 3,015,549 19,504,110 12,338,874 12,695,803 13,444,175 48,982,960 10,577,713 12,643,591 11,454,796 13,480,715 48,156,815 Charge on the Consolidated Fund, in the Quarters ended 5th January, 1819 and 1820. 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