THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 147 



LECTURE in. 



THE AMERICAN FIRE-ALARM TELEGRAPH. 



BY WILLIAM F. CHANNfNG, M. D., OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 



There are few positions more imposing than to stand at the capital 

 of a country like our own, made up of confederated States, each State 

 made up of confederated counties, each county perhaps made up of 

 confederated townships ; every part, from the least to the greatest, 

 conspiring to form an organized whole — one nation, one people. From 

 such a centre it is natural to look abroad over the fair land, at territo- 

 ries and commonwealths, at cities and handets, whose interests and 

 national life are thus interwoven into one, and to ask what are the 

 laws and what the means of organization by which civihzation attains 

 these her great ends? It is natural, from such a point of view, to in- 

 quire into the general laws of relation by which parts are intelligently 

 bound together to form a composite wdiole for some end of use or 

 beauty, that is, the laws of relation by which every organization, 

 every mechanism, in the high sense of that word, is formed. The 

 material universe, with its majestic movements of suns, stars, planets, 

 light, heat, winds, tides, seasons, is such a mechanism, actuated 

 ever by the infinite Power, shaped and guided by ttie infinite Wis- 

 dom, animated by the infinite Love. The power which went forth 

 at creation estabhshed the universe, with all its beauty and capacity, 

 by the intelligent combination of outward parts. By the marriage of 

 elementary atoms, by the joining of lesser unities to form greater, in 

 accordance with a principle of absolute order and liarmony, nature 

 took her perfect form. With this type of creation ever before us, the 

 manifestation of God in his works, let not the word mechanism, if it effects 

 only the humblest organization of material elements, appear to us low 

 or unworthy. Whoever, in practical science, attains a result of human 

 use, by the intelligent combination of outward parts, emulates, in his 

 degree, the creative wisdom, which, in the language of an apocr3^phal 

 writer, hath made all things b}^ number, measure, and weight. 



In the organization of states and municipalities, the object or end ia 

 view, the formative principle, is some ideal of human life and society, 

 some thought or aspiration for freedom, justice, brotherhood ; but the 

 embodiment of these is an outward frame- work of civilization, the 

 highest mechanism to which human thought and human hands have 

 ever been applied, requiring the periect relation of parts, and methods 

 of communication and intercourse arranged and governed by an ab- 

 solute law of order. It is here that Science becomes the great instru- 

 ment of Civilization. 



In the early histor}^ of this country, the thirteen colonies stretched 

 along the sea-coast, and commerce joined their interests and estabhsiied 

 a common circulation between them. The sailing vessel — the clipper- 

 schooner — then measured the possible rate of intercourse and capacity 



