SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE. 



PRIZE ESSAY — BY J. J. THOMAS. 



The past fifty years have been remarkably distinguished by nume- 

 rous and extraordinary improvements in the useful arts. A great 

 portion of these have resulted from the direct application of scientific 

 principles. The wonderful advancement in nearly all branches of 

 manufacture, which so eminently distinguishes the present century 

 from the past,* is largely indebted to science. It was a thorough 

 knowledge of chemistry and mechanical philosophy, that enabled 

 James Watt to place the steam engine at once before the public as 

 a powerful and efficient machine — a machine which has within the 

 memory of middle-aged men, almost changed the face of civilized 

 countries ; and has spread towns, villages, and cultivated fields, in 

 regions where, but for this invention, nothing would be seen but un- 

 broken forests. 



Very great advantages have resulted from the precision with which 

 the principles of mathematics and mechanical philosophy, may be ap- 

 plied in arriving at practical results. The accurate knowledge of 

 pressure and force, in constructing machinery, and in civil engineer- 

 ing, which calculation enables us to obtain, before trial, is of the 

 greatest importance. The mathematician, who knows the force of 

 gravity, may sit in his closet and tell us, without error, the velocity 

 of a falling body, and the precise increase in its rate of descent; or 

 he may determine, by calculation, from a knowledge of this velocity, 



• A single instance of this advancement is mentioned by J. F. Herchel, in the fact 

 that a man can now produce about two hundred times as much cotton goods, in a 

 given time, from the raw material, as he could seventy or eighty years ago. 



