English had determined that day to give no quarter. Early in the day some French, Germans, and Savoyards had broken through the archers of the prince's battalion, and had engaged with the men-at-arms; upon which the second battalion came to his aid; and it was time, for otherwise he would have been hard pressed. The first division, seeing the danger they were in, sent a knight (Sir Thomas Norwich) in great haste to the King of England, who was posted on an eminence near a windmill. On the knight's arrival, he said, 'Sir, the Earl of Warwick, the Lord Stafford, the Lord Reginald Cobham, and the others who are about your son, are vigorously attacked by the French; and they entreat that you would come to their assistance with your battalion, for, if their numbers should increase, they fear he will have too much to do.' The king replied, 'Is my son dead, unhorsed, or so badly wounded that he cannot support himself?' 'Nothing of the sort, thank God!' rejoined the knight, but he is in so hot an engagement that he has great need of your help.' The king answered-'Now, Sir Thomas, return back to those that sent you, and tell them from me not to send to me again this day, or expect that I shall come, let what will happen, as long as my son has life; and say that I command them to let the boy win his spurs; for I am determined, if it please God, that all the glory and honour of the day shall be given to him, and to those in whose care I have entrusted him.' The knight returned to his lords, and related the king's answer, which mightily encouraged them, and made them repent that they had ever sent such a message. The French, though they fought lustily, could not resist the force of the English, and, spite of their prowess, were borne down on every hand. The Earls Aumarle, St. Pol, Auxerre, Flanders, Blois (nephew of the King of France), and the Duke of Lorraine (the King of France's brother-in-law), with very many gallant knights and squires were slain, and the King of France, who had not about him more than sixty men, every one included, was led away by force from the field by Sir John de Harcourt, first to the castle of La Broyes, where he stayed but to take some refreshment, and then on in the night to Amiens. This Saturday the English never quitted their ranks in pursuit of anyone, but remained in the field guarding their position, and defending themselves against all who attacked them. The battle was ended at the hour of vespers. When, on the Saturday night, the English heard no more hooting or shouting, nor any more crying out to particular lords or their banners, they looked upon the field as their own, and their enemies as beaten; they made great fires, and lighted torches, because of the obscurity of the night. King Edward then came down from his post, who all the day had not put on his helmet, and, with his whole battalion, advanced to the Prince of Wales, whom he embraced in his arms and kissed, and said: 'Sweet son, God give you good perseverance; you are my son, for most loyally have you acquitted yourself this day: you are worthy to be a Sovereign.' The prince bowed down very low, and humbled himself, giving all honour to the king his father. DECIMAL COINAGE. Table.-The £ taken as the unit of reference,-10 mils. = 1 cent, 1 c.; 10 cents= 1 florin, 1 fl.; 10 florins = £1. (1) Reduce £34 5 fl. 8 c. 7 m.; £48 9 fl. 4 c. 6 m.; £82 8 fl. 8 c. 4 m.; £93 7 fl. 4 m.; £47 5 c. 6 m. to mils. (2) Reduce 86978 m.; 56843 m.; 96889 m.; 58679 m.; 896791 m.; to £ fl. c. and m. (3) Reduce £27 8 fl. 9 c.; £561; £476 81 fl.; £569 1 fl. 61 c.; £841; £96 7 f. 5 c. to mils. (4) £78 8 fl. 6 c. 7 m. + £29 9 fl. 8 c. 9 m. + £986 4 fl. 8 c. 7 m. + £326 92 fl. + £57 5 fl. 8 c. (5) £64 7 fl. 2 c. 3 m.-£37 8 fl. 9 c. 4 m.; £46 3 fl. 7 c. 2 m. (£29 4 fl + £7 3 fl. 2 c.). THE NATURE AND INFLUENCE OF DECAY. (From Chemical Letters,' by Professor Liebig.) or-gan'-ic, consisting of different parts, tem'-po-ra-ry, existing for a short time prim-el-val, as it existed in the earliest times fa-cil'-i-tate, to make easy Ta'-ci-tus, a Roman historian who lived hu'-mus, decayed vegetable matter which | mol-lus'-ca, animals which have no internal skeleton ox'-i-dise, to combine with oxygen; to rust per and se (Lat.), by itself ex-tra'-ne-ous, outward, acting from with out co-he'-sion, the act of sticking or holding together ab-sorp'-tion, the act of absorbing or ni-tro'-gen-ous, formed of nitrogen sac-cha-rine, consisting of or containing No organised substance, no part of any plant or animal, after the extinction of the vital principle, is capable of resisting the chemical action of air and moisture; for all that power of resistance which they temporarily possessed as the bearers of life, the media of the vital manifestations, completely ceases with the death of the organism; their elements fall again under the unlimited dominion of the chemical forces. L The clearing of the primeval forests of America, facilitating the access of air to that soil, so rich in vegetable remains, alters gradually, but altogether, its constitution: after the lapse of a few years no trace of organic remains can be found in it. The soil of Germany, in the time of Tacitus, was covered with a dense, almost impenetrable forest: it must, at that period, have exactly resembled the soil of America, and have been rich in humus, and vegetable substances; but all the products of vegetable life in those primeval forests have completely vanished from our perceptions. The innumerable millions of molluscous and other animals whose remains form extensive geological formations and mountains, have, after death, passed into a state of fermentation and putrefaction, and subsequently, by the continuous action of the atmosphere, all their soft parts have been transposed into gaseous compounds, and their shells and bones, their indestructible constituents, alone remain. It is only in localities, under peculiar circumstances, where the access of oxygen was limited or altogether precluded, that we still find distinct remains of primeval vegetables in a state of retarded or impeded decay, as, for example, in beds of turf and brown coal. The presence of water, and a suitable temperature, are indispensable conditions of the oxidising process of decay, just as they are necessary to putrefaction and fermentation. Perfect dryness, or a temperature below the freezing point, suspends all processes of decay and fermentation. The transmission of decomposition from one particle to another presupposes a change of place; it requires that the particles should possess mobility, or the power of free motion, and this is imparted to them by the presence of water. In decay it is more especially a certain elevated temperature which increases the aptitude of the elements of organic substances to combine with the oxygen of the atmosphere. A great number of organic bodies, when in à moist state, are capable of absorbing oxygen, whilst many, and indeed most of them, are per se entirely deficient in this respect. If we place wet sawdust, or moistened fragments of wood, in a vessel filled with atmospheric air, all the properties of the contained air become in a very short time completely altered. If a lighted splinter-which of course would burn in atmospheric air-is introduced after the lapse of two or three hours, its flame will be immediately extinguished. The air confined in the vessel, if examined, will be found to have lost all its oxygen, and to have acquired an equal volume of carbonic acid gas. If a fresh supply of atmospheric air is made to replace this, the same process again occurs-all the oxygen becomes converted into carbonic acid. In the process of bleaching in the open air, or, as it is called, grass-bleaching, we have the process of decay applied to an important purpose in the arts upon a large scale. Linen or cotton textures consist of ordinary woody fibre, more or less coloured by extraneous organic substances, which were either contained in the plant whence the fibre has been derived, or have become mixed with it during the process of preparation. When linen or cotton fabrics are moistened with water and exposed to the light of the sun, a slow process of combustion, or decay, immediately begins upon the whole surface: the oxygen of the atmosphere in immediate contact with the linen or cotton is incessantly converted into carbonic acid. The weight of the fabric diminishes every second, precisely because it is in a state of combustion; all the colouring matters gradually disappear, and with them a considerable amount of woody fibre, their elements being converted into oxygen compounds. If this action of air and light upon the linen or cotton continues for a considerable time, these substances lose their cohesion and become converted into a matter similar to that used in the manufacture of paper, and this matter still continues to decay as long as the essential condition of this change, that is, the absorption of oxygen, proceeds. The nitrogenous constituents of plants and animals comport themselves towards oxygen in a manner precisely similar to the behaviour of the non-nitrogenous principle we have spoken of, namely, woody fibre. Fresh meat, as well as the first products of the decomposition of the nitrogenous constituents of plants in fermentation, that is, beer yeast, or wine yeast, withdraw oxygen from atmospheric air, and, like woody fibre, yield in return an equal volume of carbonic acid. When the Cemetery of the Innocents at Paris was removed from the interior of the town to the outside of the barriers, the buried corpses, which had accumulated to a depth of sixty feet, were found to a great extent apparently converted into fat. The substance of the skin, muscles, cellular tissue, and tendons, all the soft parts, and even the bones, had completely disappeared, leaving only the fat, which, resisting longest the influence of decay, remained in the form of margaric acid. This human fat was employed to the extent of many tons by the soap-boilers and tallow-chandlers of Paris, for the manufacture of soap and candles. If meat be suspended in running water, or buried in moist earth, nothing of it will remain after the lapse of some time, except the fat which it contains. All substances susceptible of decay, when in a moist state, and exposed to the air and light at the common temperature, undergo precisely the same change as they would if exposed to a red heat in a dry state, that is, they absorb oxygen-they undergo combustion. Alcohol, one of the products of the fermentation of saccharine vegetable juices, is altogether incapable of undergoing the process of decay; when exposed to the air, whether in its pure state or mixed with water, it evaporates without combining with oxygen. Alcohol is readily inflammable at a higher temperature, and in burning is resolved into carbonic acid and water. It is obvious that its elements have a powerful affinity for oxygen: the high temperature is, however, a necessary condition of the manifestation of this affinity. Hydrogen gas and many other inflammable substances are, in this respect, precisely similar to alcohol; their affinity for oxygen manifests itself only at certain high temperatures. DECIMAL COINAGE. Reduce in the decimal coinage (to decimals true to the third place): (1) £5 9s. 4d.; £7 1s. 7d.; £74 4s. 61d.; £3 3s. 3d.; £4 1s. 71⁄2d. Reduce to the ordinary coinage : (2) £38 6 fl. 8 c. 8 m.; £50 7 fl. 4 c.; £45·986; £782.809. Reduce to decimal coinage (true to the third place) and to the ordinary coinage: (3) £34 13s. 71d.; £4 14s. 81⁄2d.; £819 2s.; £549 12s. 6d.: £6·92; £17.703. Work the following sums, giving each answer in the decimal coinage: (4) £75 14s. 9d. × 47; £368 19s. 6d.÷54; £46 11s. 6d. × 27. (5) Find the value of 6 cwt. 3 qrs. 14 lbs. @ £28 16s. 4d. per cwt. THE VOICES OF BIRDS. (From the 'Natural History of Selbourne,' by Rev. Gilbert White.) viz'-ier, the Turkish Prime Minister se-ren-ade' (v.), to entertain with music pas'-ser-es (Lat.), sparrows and birds similar to them hi-run'-dines (Lat.), swallows and birds a-quat-ic, living near or on the water Selbourne, September 9, 1778. DEAR SIR,-From the motion of birds, the transition is natural enough to their notes and language, of which I shall say |