664 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



or to that of nearly 150,000,000 men, or to a population of nearly 

 500,000,000. I suppose the actual population of the United States is 

 nearly 60,000,000. We see by this how much in this country alone 

 the inventions of Watt and Stephenson have increased the powers of 

 man. The imagination staggers under the figures. 



Of course a host of other inventors have been concerned with the 

 results I have given, but the results are none the less the work of in- 

 ventors because there are many of them. 



The steam-engine has entered into many other inventions, the steam- 

 drill and the steam-dredge, for instance, which have given to man the 

 ability to execute engineering works of the most extraordinary character. 



The stcam-haranier is another of the wonders of modern machin- 

 ery which followed the steam-engine. One of the gods of ancient 

 mythology was Vulcan, a blacksmith, who was supposed, I believe, to 

 have forged the thunderbolts of Jupiter. What conception may have 

 been entertained of his power or of the magnitude of thunderbolts, I 

 can not say, but probably he was never supposed to wield a hammer 

 like a modern steam-hammer, weighing thirty-five tons, through a dis- 

 tance of ten or twelve feet, or to have executed any work like the forg- 

 ing of the propeller-shaft of a modern steamship. But what ancient 

 gods could not do the modern inventor easily docs. 



The power of the steam-engine comes from heat — from the fire in 

 the boiler. The fuel used is largely coal, stored ages ago in the earth. 

 Fire has been long known to man and has been ready to do his work, 

 and the iron and steel for engines had been long known. But not till 

 the magic of the inventor had brought these things together did man 

 learn what power was lying ready to his hand. 



If at the time Watt made his improvement in the steam-engine 

 some change in the laws of Nature had come into play which had 

 gradually increased the physical power of man until now it had become 

 tenfold greater than it was, this increase would not be equal to that 

 which man has gained from the labors of Watt and the inventors who 

 have succeeded him in the development of that instrument, and in the 

 invention and improvement of machines to be used in connection with 

 it. And this increased power of man is not exerted for the rich alone, 

 but is shared by the great mass of men as impartially as if the power 

 of each individual had been increased, as I have supposed, in the same 

 ratio. We see this most strikingly in the ability Avhich the railroad 

 and the telegraph have given to the laboring-men in the mechanical 

 industries throughout the land to combine and organize for mutual 

 support, and in opposition, as it is said, to capital. It is only through 

 the agency of the railroad and the telegraph that a great body of la- 

 boring-men scattered over a wide area of territory are able to organize 

 and act as a unit, and thus secure the highest prices for their labor 

 which the nature of their work and the demands of society will per- 

 mit. It is only by reason of the capital of others invested in these 



