130 LINCOLN SOCIETY. 



growing influence in the affairs of the world, and our military 

 and naval achievements, there is enough to justify us in all the 

 exultation we feel, and even more than is sarcastically attributed 

 to us by those who envy our position. Our progress as a na- 

 tion is truly without a parallel in the world's history ; and it is 

 impossible, without emotion, to reflect that our country, in the 

 brief space of a man's life, has, from the feebleness of infancy, 

 attained the stature and strength of a giant. 



In no half century of the world's history have great events in 

 science and arts so crowded upon each other as during the past 

 fifty years. In no age was it ever so inestimable a privilege 

 to live. Of such time as that in which we live, twenty years 

 are worth inconceivably more than the lifetime of all the paj^ri- 

 archs. Within this time machinery has been made to till the 

 ground for man, gather its fruits, feed and clothe him, and erect 

 his buildings. The railroad and locomotive are his swift ser- 

 vants, almost annihilating for him time and space. With his 

 steamship he rides the waves on a charger; with his diving- 

 bell he explores the awful depths of the ocean ; and, anon, with 

 his baloon, he spurns the ground and soars among the clouds. 

 Taught by Daguerre, he has brought the great Apollo from his 

 chariot in the heavens down to his studio, and compelled him, 

 as an humble artist, to paint his pictures ; by geology he has 

 almost wrung from the earth the secret of its creation ; he has 

 weighed the earth as in a balance, measured the stars, tracked 

 the comets, mapped the heavens, and exhausted the shining- 

 worlds in our system. 



While these great strides have been taken, these wonderful 

 discoveries made, has the United States been an idle spectator ? 

 No. She has explored the southern hemisphere, and discovered 

 an antarctic continent ; she has sent succor for the lost navi- 

 gators, and reaped a rich reward in the discovery of the North 

 Polar Ocean; she has traced the river Jordan through its tor- 

 tuous course ; surveyed the Red Sea, and reported upon the 

 great river Amazon ; she has surveyed various routes across 

 the great range of the Rocky Mountains, and through her coast 

 survey produced results of untold value to this nation, and ad- 

 ded a vast amount of science to the world. 



Her Espy has taught the world, the true philosophy of storms. 



