observed this vast flow of capital towards one point, predicted unpleasant results. The immediate consequences were agreeable enough, they allowed. Iron-works were established, wherever a promising situation could be found. Smokes arose from a hundred places where the hills where all before had been a mountain solitude. The cottages of well-paid labourers multiplied every day; and prosperity seemed, at last, to have visited the working classes in an equal proportion with their masters. But the quantity of iron prepared was so great, that it seemed scarcely possible that the demand could long remain as brisk as at present. Any one who observed the trains of waggons on the rail-roads of the various works, or the traffic on the canals, or the shipments at Newport and Cardiff, would have wondered where a market could be found for such a quantity of metal; but as long as the masters found it impossible to keep any stock by them, or even to supply their orders, they were very sanguine about the continuance of their prosperity, and went on fearlessly enlarging their works in number and extent, regardless of the warnings offered them that a glut must be the consequence. Mr. Wallace and his partners were more prudent than most of their neighbours. They were mindful enough of the probability of change to be careful how much they invested as _fixed_ capital, which could not be easily withdrawn or transferred in case of a change of times. _Fixed Capital_, that is, money laid out in land, buildings, machinery, and tools, is a necessary part of the property of every one who endeavours to increase his wealth. The farmer must have not only land to produce grain, but ploughs and harrows to prepare the soil, sickles to reap the corn, waggons to carry it away, barns to store it in, &c., if he means to make the utmost profit he can of his produce. He thus increases his wealth by fixing his capital, though his tools and buildings and horses do not directly afford him any profit like his _circulating capital_. That which is commonly called _circulating capital_ is the wealth laid out with an immediate view to farther production; such as the farmer’s seed-corn, and the wages of his labourers. But as nothing is said in the word _circulating_ about this farther production, we had rather find a better word. _Reproducible_ seems to us the right term. Thus, the manufacturer’s raw silk and cotton, the farmer’s seed-corn, or the sheep and oxen he intends to sell again, the iron-master’s coal and iron-stone, and that which is paid by all in the shape of wages, are _reproducible capital_, because it comes back to its owner when it has fulfilled its purpose and procured a profit. It is clear that the business which requires the least fixed capital in proportion to the reproducible capital must be the least in danger from a change of times. The wine-merchant, whose fixed capital consists only of cellars, casks, hampers, and a cart and horses, has