44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



purified by water, and even by heat, and at last raised to within the 

 reach of man by subterranean movements. From this reservoir of 

 labor, man now draws rapidly, driving away the frost of to-day with 

 the sunshine of a million years ago, and thrashing this year's harvest 

 with the power that came to our earth before corn grew upon it. 



Such are the processes by which the sun's power is collected and 

 stored up by the vegetable kingdom in a form sufficiently condensed 

 to be available for working the machinery of the bodies of men and 

 beasts, and also to assist man in vaster expenditures of labor. It is 

 most interesting to trace stxch processes, and not only interesting, but 

 also instructive, for it shows us in what direction we are to look for 

 our sources of labor, and will at once expose many common delusions. 

 One hears, perhaps, that something will be found to supplant steam. 

 Galvanism may be named ; yet galvanism is generated by certain 

 decompositions of metal, for instance and this metal had first to be 

 prepared by the agency of coal, and in its decomposition cau give out 

 no more labor than the coal before invested in it. It is as if one 

 should buy a steam-engine to pump up water to keep his mill-wheel 

 going. The source of all labor is the sun. We cannot immediately 

 make much use of his rays for the purposes of work ; they are not 

 intense enough ; they must be condensed. The vegetable world alone 

 at present seems capable of doing this ; and its past results of coal, 

 peat, petroleum, etc., and present results of wood and food, are ulti- 

 mately all we have to look to. 



To say that man will ever be dependent upon the vegetable world 

 for all his work, may be considered bold, but there is certainly great 

 reason to believe it. The sun's labor being supplied in such a diluted 

 form, each small quantity continually supplied must be packed in a 

 very small space. Now, man can only subject matter to influences in 

 the mass. The little particle of carbon that the plant frees each in- 

 stant is beyond his ken. The machinery he could make would not be 

 fine enough : it would be like trying to tie an artery with the biggest 

 cable on board the Great Eastern. Organized existence possesses 

 machinery fine enough to effect these small results, and to avail itself 

 of these little instalments of labor. At present, this machinery is be* 

 yond our corapi-ehension, and possibly will ever remain so. Nature 

 prefers that her children should keep out of the kitchen, and not pry 

 into her pots and pans, but eat in thankfulness the meal she provides. 



Some interesting: results follow from what has been stated above 

 One is, that we are consuming not only our present allowance of the 

 sun's labor, but also a great deal more, unless the formation of coal in 

 our age equals its consumption, which is not probable. Mother Earth 

 will certainly, so far as we can see, some day be bankrupt. Such a 

 consummation is pointed to, however, in other quarters. The sun's 

 heat, unless miraculously replenished, must gradually be dissipated 

 through space. There are reasons for thinking that the planets must 



