the competition of united labour. He had
made also a wooden clock. He carried about
his globe and his clock, and 'began to pick up
some money about the country' by cleaning
clocks. He became a skilled clock-cleaner.
For six-and-twenty years afterwards he earned
his bread as an artist. He then became a
scientific lecturer, and in connection with his
pursuits, was also a globe maker. His name
may be seen upon old globes, associated with
that of Senex. The demand for globes must
have been then very small, but Ferguson had
learned that cheapness is produced by labour-
saving contrivances. A pretty instrument for
graduating lines upon the meridian ring, once
belonging to Ferguson, is in use at this hour
in the manufactory of Messrs. Malby and Son.
The poor lad 'who made a globe in three
weeks' finally won the honours and riches
that were due to his genius and industry.
But he would never have earned a living in
the continuance of his first attempt to turn a
ball out of a piece of wood, cover it with paper,
and draw a map of the world upon it. The
nicest application of his individual skill, and
the most careful employment of his scientific
knowledge, would have been wasted upon
those portions of the work in which the
continued application of common routine labour
is the most efficient instrument of production.

Let us contrast the successive steps of
Ferguson's first experiment in globe-making
with the processes of a globe manufactory.

A globe is not made of 'a ball turned out of
a piece of wood.' If a solid ball of large
dimensions were so turned, it would be too
heavy for ordinary use. Erasmus said of one
of the books of Thomas Aquinas, 'No man can
carry it about, much less get it into his head;'
and so would it be said of a solid globe. If it
were made of hollow wood, it would warp and
split at the junction of its parts. A globe is
made of paper and plaster. It is a beautiful
combination of solidity and lightness. It is
perfectly balanced upon its axis. It retains
its form under every variety of temperature.
Time affects it less than most other works of
art. It is as durable as a Scagliola column.

A globe may not, at first sight, appear a
cheap production. It is not, of necessity, a
low-priced production, and yet it is essentially
cheap; for nearly all the principles of
manufacture that are conditions of cheapness are
exhibited in the various stages of its construction.
There are only four globe-makers in
England and one in Scotland. The annual
sale of globes is only about a thousand pair.
The price of a pair of globes varies from six
shillings to fifty pounds. But from the
smallest 2-inch, to the largest 36-inch globe,
a systematic process is carried on at every
step of its formation. We select this Illustration
of Cheapness as a contrast, in relation to
price and extent of demand, to the Lucifer
Match.  But it is, at the same time, a parallel
in principle. If a globe were not made upon
a principle involving the scientific combination
of skilled labour, it would be a mere
article of luxury from its excessive costliness.
It is now a most useful instrument in education.
For educational purposes the most
inexpensive globe is as valuable as that of the
highest price. All that properly belongs to
the excellence of the instrument is found in
combination with the commonest stained
wood frame, as perfectly as with the most
highly-finished frame of rose-wood or
mahogany.

The mould, if we may so express it, of a globe
is turned out of a piece of wood. This sphere
need not be mathematically accurate. It is
for rough work, and flaws and cracks are of
little consequence. This wooden ball has an
axis, a piece of iron wire at each pole. And
here we may remark, that, at every stage of
the process, the revolution of a sphere upon
its axis, under the hands of the workman, is
the one great principle which renders every
operation one of comparative ease and
simplicity. The labour would be enormously
multiplied if the same class of operations had to
be performed upon a cube. The solid mould,
then, of the embryo globe is placed on its axis
in a wooden frame. In a very short time a
boy will form a pasteboard globe upon its
surface. He first covers it entirely with strips
of strong paper, thoroughly wet, which are in
a tub of water at his side. The slight
inequalities produced by the over-lapping of the
strips are immaterial. The saturated paper
is not suffered to dry; but is immediately
covered over with a layer of pasted paper,
also cut in long narrow slips. A third layer
of similarly pasted paper—brown paper and
white being used alternately—is applied; and
then, a fourth, a fifth and a sixth. Here the
pasting process ends for globes of moderate
size. For the large ones it is carried farther.
This wet pasteboard ball has now to be dried.
—placed upon its axis in a rack. If we were
determined to follow the progress of this
individual ball through all its stages, we should
have to wait a fortnight before it advanced
another step. But as the large factory of
Messrs. Malby and Son has many scores of
globes all rolling onward to perfection, we
shall be quite satisfied to witness the next
operation performed upon a pasteboard sphere
that began to exist some weeks earlier, and is
now hard to the core.

The wooden ball, with its solid paper
covering, is placed on its axis. A sharp
cutting instrument, fixed on a bench, is brought
into contact with the surface of the sphere,
which is made to revolve. In less time than
we write, the pasteboard ball is cut in half.
There is no adhesion to the wooden mould, for
the first coating of paper was simply wetted.
Two bowls of thick card now lie before us,
with a small hole in each, made by the axis of
the wooden ball. But a junction is very soon
effected. Within every globe there is a piece
of wood—we may liken it to a round ruler—
of the exact length of the inner surface of the