MICHIGAN" STATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 57 



unquestionably furnished the crude models from which sue 

 cessive improvements have finally wrought out the innumerable 

 variety of useful, elegant, and ornamental implements and 

 utausils. Men were first clad in skins, and then with garments 

 made of more flexible materials, elaborated by intellect for the 

 occasion. But the twirling distaff and spindle, with the spool 

 and shuttle of ancient matrons, have been entirely eclipsed by 

 the modern spinning-jenny and power loom, performing the 

 labor of myriads of hands, and daily throwing off incredible 

 amounts in textile fabrics of surpassing beauty and of gossa- 

 mer fineness. 



Nor are these the only changes compassed by science and 

 skill. Who, whilst viewing the glorious models of naval archi- 

 tecture, in this our age, would dream of tracing out their 

 archetypes in the dug-out or frail canoe once creeping along 

 the coast of Tyre, or in the more recent but clumsy Trireme 

 of Grecian pirates in the Levant ? Who, as he now in fancy 

 contemplates the rude huts and cabins erected by Adam and 

 his sons, would think it possible that genius, from such a 

 starting point, could ever reach the proportion, style, and 

 finish, much less the grand architectural design of St. Paul's, 

 the Pantheon, or of St. Peter's at Kome ? 



What modern astronomer, standing in yonder observatory, 

 as he traces with matchless accuracy field after field of the 

 starry vault, measuring the planets in their orbits, and assign- 

 ing to each its law of motion, does not forget to remember that 

 his first lessons were derived from the nightly watchings of 

 shepherds on the plains of Chaldea ? 



Who now detects in the mystic stone-wrought hieroglyphics, 

 of some Coptic priest of Egypt, the germ of the printers art, 

 or the embryo of the power press, daily throwing oflF to mil- 

 lions the free-born thoughts of cultivated minds? Or, 

 stranger still, deems it true, that in such mystic groupings 

 and durable stamping of thought are shadowed forth captive 

 lightning, laden with telegrams and racing with light ? 

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