278 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



his commerce. By the aid of the mariner's compass he has plowed 

 its bosom with a million keels, and reaped from that plowing a golden 

 harvest, and by the aid of science and steam he has discovered 

 Elisha's ancient miracle and made the iron to swim. To-day the 

 waves acknowledge their lord in him as they did of the old when 

 they bowed their white crests and crouched at the feet of their Maker 

 on Galilee's lake. By the aid of dikes and breakwaters and canals, 

 man has snatched a kingdom — that of Holland — from Neptune, and 

 by the Atlantic cable he has made the dark, unfathomed caves of 

 ocean a whispering gallery between two worlds. Yes, " the mysteri- 

 ous depths of ocean are to-day only a path for thought to travel 

 through, winged by the lightning and guarded by the billow." Of 

 old it was fabled that Neptune ruled the ocean with a trident for a 

 scepter. The ancient fable has become reality; Morse is our modern 

 Neptune and his trident is a single wire. 



I have already spoken of the tremendous forces that are all about 

 us. Why, each drop of water is the sheath of forces mighty enough 

 to charge eight hundred thousand cells iji a galvanic battery. The 

 glistening bead of dew from which the daisy drinks, and which a 

 sunbeam may dissipate, is the globular compromise of antagonistic 

 powers that would shake this building if set free. Take the force 

 expended in evaporation to which I referred a few minutes ago. 

 Think of the expenditure of mechanical force required to water your 

 little city's streets ! What pumping and tugging by that old horse 

 down there by the creek ! (I always wondered if he wouldn't take 

 more interest if he were made a stockholder or partner in the busi- 

 ness. He never seemed to throw his soul into it, as it were.) And 

 then what tramping of horses and sprinklers day by day. But 

 nature has taken a contract to sprinkle the globe, and how much 

 better she does it with the powers at her command ! The sun looks 

 steadily on the ocean, and its beams lift lakes of water into the air, 

 tossing it up thousands of feet with their delicate fringes, and care- 

 fully eliminating every grain of salt from it before they let it go. 

 No granite reservoirs are needed to hold in the Lake Merceds of the 

 atmosphere, but the soft outlines of the clouds hem in the vast weight 

 of the upper tides that are to cool the globe, and the winds harness 

 themselves as steeds to those aerial water carts and whirl them along 

 through space, disbursing their rivers of moisture from that great 

 height so gently as not to crush a violet by their fall. 



Now, all our modern material civilization is the result of the mas- 

 tery of these natural forces. 



One man can make as much flour in a day as one hundred and fifty 

 could one hundred years ago. One woman can make as much lace 

 as one hundred could then — and wear it, too! It took as many 

 months to refine sugar fifty years ago as it does d^^ys now — formerly 

 it took six months, now it is done in forty minutes. In the old days 

 when the formula for fever was " take a pint of blood and a quart of 

 physic," they used to destroy sensation in a limb to be amputated by 

 immersing it in boiling oil! I should suppose that amputation 

 would be a pleasant sensation compared to that. Now our surgeons 

 freeze the part to be operated on with ether spray, and saw off an 

 arm or leg while you are reading the morning paper. 



By and by, perhaps they will administer anesthetics when they 

 present their bills. That would indeed be a sweet boon to suffering 

 humanity ! 



