flower borders, are figures of Wisdom, Fortitude, Vigilance, Temperance, Perseverance, Watchfulness, Justice, and Faith. The arabesques in the first story are views of coal mines—Wallsend, Percy, Pit Main, Regent’s Pit, &c. The second and third storey panels are painted with miners at work; and the twenty-four ovals at the springing of the dome have, upon a turquoise blue ground, figures of fossil plants found in coal formations. The minor ornamentation is flowers, shells, snakes, lizards, and other reptiles, miners’ tools and nautical subjects;—there you can see all the process of coal mining, without troubling yourself to go down a mine, and in a small museum, too small for such a grand building and such a wealthy trade, curious specimens of fossil products and coal will make the observer still more learned; but let us look at the living mass beneath. Some of the men below are famous city names. There sometimes you may see Sir James Duke, who came to London a clerk, poor and under-paid, on board a man-of-war, and who on this Coal Exchange has made a colossal fortune, and who was made a baronet, he being at the time Lord Mayor, when the New Exchange was opened by Prince Albert, on the 29th Oct., 1849, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal. Here oftener you may see Hugh Taylor, M.P., who began life as a cabin-boy, then became a captain, then was developed into a coal-owner, and who is said to be a perfect Midas, and possesses an art, very much, thought of by city people, of turning everything he touches into gold. On a door just below where we stand is inscribed the name of Lord Ward, for even noblemen don’t mind sullying their fingers with vulgar trade, if anything is to be made by it. And there is the name of a Welsh coal-owner, who, some fifty years back, was a clerk in a certain timber merchant’s, at a guinea a week, and who now, I believe, can raise and ship a couple of thousand tons of coal a day. Depend upon it there is some money made by these black diamonds, and the corporation of London know it, for they have managed to get a tax levied of one penny on every ton of coals, whether brought by sea or rail within thirty miles of where we stand. What they do with the enormous sum thus collected it is impossible to say; it is true they built this handsome Exchange, at a cost altogether of £91,167. 11s. 8d., but that is a small part of their receipts. When the tax was first levied it did not much matter; about the year 1550 one or two ships sufficed for the coal trade of London. On Friday, December 2nd, 1859, the number of ships with cargoes for sale on that day was not less than 340—and on an average each ship employed in the coal trade carries 300 tons of coal. In the month of October alone there were brought into the London markets 283,849 tons by sea, and by rail 95,195 tons and three-quarters. Of course in winter time the trade is very brisk. The retail dealers in the metropolis will