limited, and resembling closely in their ercial conditions the roads of the United -the German railways have been coned, in general, on principles analogous to which have been found to answer so well erica. The vast expenditure for earth-work stly works of art, such as viaducts, bridges, nnels, by which valley are bestridden and ains pierced to gain a straight and level line English system, have not been attempted; railways have been carried more nearly he natural level of the country, the cost of work having been generally limited to that

of short cuttings and low embankments. Curves of comparatively short radius have also been admitted, so that the railways might wind along those levels which would offer the most economical conditions of construction.

lation which railways and railway capital The following comparative view of the rebear to the territorial extent and population of different countries, will be read with interest :

arative View of the Movement of Traffic on a Portion of the Railways in operation in the United Kingdom, United States, Belgium, France, and Germany.

common denomination of "dwelling-house." The most exact measure of the relative utility or efficiency of two lines of railway is their cost. It is not, however, to be forgotten that, even in adopting this test, regard must be had to the relative cost of land, material, and manual labor.

"It would have been desirable to have exhibited a comparative view of the average movement of the traffic upon the railways in operation in different countries at a corresponding epoch. Unfortunately we have no documents to enable us to do this with all the precision which might be

wished. I have, however, collected in a many data as are supplied by authent ments for nearly corresponding epoch railways on which the traffic reported h carried do not in general include all the li in the respective countries; neverthele will afford some approximation to a compa the extent of intercommunication by railv some cases also I have been obliged to ob numerical results by estimation. These indicated in the table."

From the New Monthly Magazine.

WALLACE AND FAWDON.

BY LEIGH HUNT.

[THIS Dallad was suggested by one of the notes to the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Wallace, th Scottish patriot, had been defeated in a sharp encounter with the English. He was forced to with only sixteen followers; the English pursued him with a bloodhound; and his sole chance cape from that tremendous investigator was either in baffling the scent altogether (which was sible, unless fugitives could take to the water, and continue there for some distance), or in con it by the spilling of blood. For the latter purpose a captive was sometimes sacrificed; in whi the hound stopped upon the body.

The supernatural part of the story of Fawdon is treated by its first relater, Harry the Minstr mere legend, and that not a very credible one; but as a mere legend it is very fine, and quite su for poetical purposes; nor should the old poet's philosophy have thought proper to gainsay it. theless, as the mysteries of the conscience are more awful things than any merely gratuitous (besides leaving optical phenomena quite as real as the latter may find them), even the super part of the story becomes probable when we consider the agitations which the noble mind of V may have undergone during such trying physical circumstances, and such extremes of moral sibility. It seems clear, that however necessary the death of Fawdon may have been to his c jons or to Scotland, his slayer regretted it; I have suggested the kind of reason which he wou likely have had for the regret; and upon the whole, it is my opinion, that Wallace actually s visions, and that the legend originated in the fact. I do not mean to imply that Fawdon becan ent, embodied or disembodied, whatever may have been the case with his spectre. I only s what the legend reports Wallace to have seen, was actually in the hero's eyes. The remainde question I leave to the pyschologist.]

From the North British Review.

MAHOMET AND THE KORAN.

Life of Mahomet. By WASHINGTON IRVING. London: Murray, 1850

The Arabic writers that tell us these give us an account also of the pedigre previous history of Mahomet. The pr they say, was not an Arab of the genu pure race, the posterity of Kahtan or J the son of Heber, by whom, after the hilation of the wicked aboriginal tribes Thamud, &c., the Arabian Peninsul been re-colonized; he was an Arab mixed or Ishmaelitish stock, that had introduced into the peninsula, and partic into that western portion of it called by the marriage of Ishmael, the outca of Abraham, with a daughter of the ho Joktan. The distinction, however, be these two kinds of Arabs was one rat tradition than reality, the Ishmaelitish a native Arabs living in a state of inter and pursuing exactly the same occup -some settled in towns scattered at int over the Peninsula, but the greater pi tion roaming over the desert spaces of t terior with their flocks and camels

In the year 613, the inhabitants of Mecca, was spoken of but the divine mission a considerable walled town, situated in a bar-homet Ibn Abdallah. ren stony valley, about fifty miles from the eastern shore of the Red Sea, were thrown into a state of no small excitement, by learning that they had a prophet among them, a man professing to have a commission from God to teach them, and all the other Arabs, a new way of life. There was no doubt about the fact. Already, for three years or more, there had been whisperings in the town that something strange had befallen Mahomet Ibn Abdallah, and his wife Kadijah; and now the secret was out. Mahomet himself had revealed it. At a meeting of his kinsmen, after having feasted them with lamb's flesh and milk, he had openly asserted what he had till then told only to a few, and announced himself as a messenger of God, sent to reform the faith of the Arabs. "Children of Abd-al-Motalleb," he had said to them, "I do not believe that there is any man in Arabia that can make you a better present than that I now bring to you; for I offer you the good both of this life and of the life that is to come. Know that the great God has commanded me to call you unto him." For some time the kinsmen had kept silence, not knowing what to say; but at last Mahomet's young cousin, Ali, a boy of thirteen or fourteen years of age, had sprung up and said, "Come, my cousin, I will be with you; I will be your vizier in Mecca." And Maho- | met had embraced the boy before all the kinsmen, and had said, "Verily, this is my brother, and my vizier over you; see, then, that ye pay him reverence.' And at this the kinsmen had laughed heartily, turning to Abu Thleb, the father of Ali, who was present, and saying, "Hearest thou this, Abu Thaleb, that henceforth thou must render obedience to thine own son ?" And all these things, and many more, had been spread abroad in Mecca and its neighborhood, so

In the course of the general distribut the Arabian Peninsula among the mult nous tribes, whether pure or Ishmae that divided the possesssion of it, that p the province of Hejaz in which the to Mecca was included, had fallen to the of the Koreishites, who traced their exis to Koreish, one of the descendants of Ish By the acquisition of this territory, the of Koreish found themselves raised to a tion of pre-eminence among the other tribes; for Mecca was a spot holy in th agination of all the Arabians, on account legendary associations. In this waterles dreary valley, said the native tradition Adam and Eve first met again after thei pulsion from Paradise, and long wande over the earth, in search of each other; had these parents of our race first wor