208 [Senate 



the exact length of a pendulum to beat seconds. The engineer may 

 ascertain, before he erects his work, the best form of an arch, to 

 afford the greatest strength against the pressure of a superincumbent 

 weight ; or he may calculate, accurately, the angle at which the lock- 

 gates of a canal should meet, to give the greatest security against 

 the pressure of the head of water upon them, before a single trial 

 has ever been made. 



Interesting and important practical results are also obtained, in the 

 manufacture of various articles of commerce, by the application of 

 the principles of chemistry. Geology has rendered great aid in the 

 art of mining, in all its departments. Not only in explorations for 

 the more valuable metals, but for the coarser, but not less important 

 articles, salt and coal, tens of thousands might often have been saved, 

 by a knowledge of the relations and character of the rocky strata at 

 the surface of the earth.* 



The precision with which the principles of natural philosophy, 

 have been variously applied in machinery and engineering, — and 

 chemistry and geology in manufactures and mining, — has led to the 

 apparently plausible conclusion, that not less important results might 

 be at once obtained by the application of science to agriculture. 

 From the rapid advancement of science within the present age, the 

 opinion seems to be gaining ground, that some great and extraordi- 

 nary results are about to take place ; that the slow progress in agri- 

 culture which practice and experience have effected, will soon com- 

 mence taking more rapid and powerful strides j that we are about to 

 remove the veil of obscurity and uncertainty, which hangs over so 

 many operations in culture, understand every process, and so com- 

 pletely control the growth of plants, as almost to set man free from 

 the labor of tilling the earth by the sweat of his brow ; or in other 

 words, that the agricultural millenium is near at hand. But a more 



* Some years ago, twenty thousands pounds were expended in England, in a useless 

 search for coal in Hastings sand. Although there were some apparent indications, a 

 geologist could at once have predicted failure. " All are familiar," says James Hall, 

 " with the mining enterprises, now less frequent, in search of coal along the valley of 

 the Hudson: in which there have been expended more than half a million of dollars 

 within the last fifty years." And Murchison, in his treatises on the geology of Wales, 

 remarks, that more wealth has been expended in the useless search for coal in that 

 part of the country, than all the geological investigations ot the whole world have 

 cost. 



