44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and the chances be slightly in his favor of his not receiving the slight- 

 est injury. 



A pressing subject of the present time is the economy of fuel. 

 Members of the British Association have not neglected this momentous 

 question. Many cases of waste arise from the existence of old and ob- 

 solete machines, of bad forms of furnaces, of wasteful grates, existing 

 in most dwelling-houses ; and these are not to be remedied at once, for 

 not every one can afford, however dfesirable it might be, to cast away 

 the old and adopt the new. In looking uneasily to the future supply 

 and cost of fuel, it is, however, something to know what may be done 

 even with the application of our present knowledge ; and, could we ap- 

 ply it universally to-day, all that is necessary for trade and comfort 

 could probably be as well provided for by one-half the present con- 

 sumption of fuel ; and it behooves those who are beginning to build 

 new mills, new furnaces, new steamboats, or new houses, to act as 

 though the price of coal which obtained two years ago had been the 

 normal and not the abnormal price. 



There was in early years a battle of the gauges, and there is now 

 a contest about guns ; but your time will not permit me to say much 

 on their manufacture. Here, again, the progress made in a few years 

 has been enormous, and in contributing to it, two men Sir William 

 Armstrong and Sir Joseph Whitworth, both civil engineers in this 

 country, at all events, deservedly stand foremost. Docks and harbors 

 I have no time to mention, for it is time this long and, I fear, tedious 

 address should close. 



" Whence and whither " is the aphorism which leads us away from 

 present and plainer objects to those which are more distant and ob- 

 scure ; whether we look backward or forward our vision is speedily 

 arrested by an impenetrable veil. On the subject I have chosen you 

 will probably think 1 have traveled backward far enough. I have 

 dealt to some extent with the j^resent. The retrospect, however, may 

 be useful to show what great works were done in former ages. Some 

 things have been better done than in those earlier times, but not all. 

 In what we choose to call the ideal we do not surpass the ancients. 

 Poets and painters and sculptors were as great in former times as now ; 

 so, probably, were the mathematicians. In what depends on the ac- 

 cumulation of experience we ought to excel our forerunners. Engi- 

 neering depends largely on experience ; nevertheless, in future times 

 whenever difficulties shall arise, 'or works have to be accomplished for 

 which there is no precedent, he who has to perform the duty may step 

 forth from any of the walks of life, as engineers have not unfrequently 

 hitherto done. The marvelous progress of the last two generations 

 should make every one cautious of predicting the future. Of engineer- 

 ing works it may be said that their practicability or impracticability is 

 often determined by other elements than the inherent difficulty in the 

 works themselves. Greater works than any yet achieved remain to be 



