new invention which succeeds in Great Britain has been re-produced at Seraing, within a short time of its appearance with us. The rooms and vast halls, from the ample construction of the building, present an appearance quite startling to a stranger, who may not be prepared for the unusual spectacle of a single chamber fitted up with five hundred vices along the sides, and all alive with the rush of wheels and the din of machines of every description, in action in the centre. The workmen are all Belgians, not a single English mechanic being now employed. Their tools, however, were chiefly from Manchester, and in reply to a remark, that at Ghent the Phœnix made its own; the superintendant observed, that they had tried the experiment and found that they could be had both cheaper and better from England. So many as 2,800 workmen have been at one time employed at Seraing, at wages varying from three francs a day to five or six, but would average about four francs round, exclusive of designers, whose gains are more considerable. The establishment has been latterly less regularly employed, owing to a damp upon speculation in general, and the completion of the contracts for the various railroads, and not above 2000 hands are now engaged. The whole concern is, likewise, at present in confusion, owing to the recent death of the proprietor, which will occasion the entire to be disposed of for the settlement of his affairs. The extent of his speculations in every branch of industry, and almost in every country of Europe, is almost incredible. He was concerned in no less than fifty different mines, and factories for spinning and weaving cotton, woollens, and linen, for the manufacture of paper and printed calicoes, for grinding flour, making carding machines, and in short, every promising branch of industry in Belgium, France, and Germany. His property at Seraing has been estimated (I cannot answer for how correctly) at 10,000,000[13] of francs, and his factory for spinning machinery at Liege 3,000,000, his paper mills and buildings at Andennes 2,900,000, his flour mills at Cottbus, in Silesia, 500,000, his woollen factory at St. Denis 500,000, his card machinery at Spa 400,000, and his shares in various other manufactories in Belgium and elsewhere 25,000,000. In Belgium, in fact, there has been a mania for joint-stock speculation, scarcely equalled by the bubbles of 1825 in Great Britain, and attended with equally ruinous results. Mr. Cockerill’s encouragement and participation in these adventures to such an extent, is one source of the activity and astonishing development of Seraing; the funds of these adventurers and his own, along with the rest, being vested in the purchase of machinery manufactured by himself. In the event of their success, the speculation might have been a wise one, but followed as they have been in most instances by disappointment, the result to the proprietor of Seraing,