[bovky] PRESI])P]NTIAL ADDRESS S 



the ''Times" per hour. Even hand sewing has gone out of fashion, and 

 although we are not prepared to use with respect to sewing the words of 

 8ir W. Fairbairn, that "at the beginning of the century the human hand 

 perlormed all the work that was done and performed it badly," this 

 statement is certainly very true in reference to a large amount of work 

 which is now done mechanically. Mechanical skill again has enabled 

 surgery to do much for the alleviation of human surt'ering by the making 

 of stethoscopes, microscopes and other delicate instruments, and by the in- 

 vention of apparatus for straightening distorted limbs. On the other hand, 

 perhaps in case too many people should be left alive, military science has 

 been helped to make dynamite, and has been presented with torpedo 

 boats and with Noi'denfeldt and Maxim guns, the detonation of which, if 

 we may trust newspaper reports, is warranted by a distinguished man of 

 science to reduce the crews of two hostile men-of-war to mental imbe- 

 cility in the space of fifteen minutes. 



Although at the beginning of this century there was already such a 

 marked advance in the application to machinery of steam as a motive 

 power, there was no corresponding progress in its application to the 

 improvement of the method of travel. The ship had still to wait for the 

 wind, and the lumbering stage coach was dragged by the weary horse. 



As early as the sixteenth century an attempt was made to apply 

 steam to boats, and in 1736 the first patent was taken out. Towards 

 the close of the last century a small steamer attained a speed of seven 

 miles an hour on a loch in Dumfrieshire ; in 1807 Fulton's steamer 

 sailed from New York to Albany, and in 1819 the first steamer sailed 

 from Liverpool to Dublin, Fi'om this time forward steam navigation 

 grew fast, and in 1838 the Atlantic was crossed by steamers. To Canada 

 belongs the undying honour of having built and equipped the " Eoyal 

 William," the first steamship to cross the Atlantic. She was of 

 1370 tons burden, was built by George Black in Campbell's shipyard, 

 Wolfe's Cove, Quebec, was launched on April 27th, 1831, and cost 

 £16,000. She was towed to Montreal, where she received her engines, 

 and sailed from Pictou, Nova Scotia, on August 17th, 1833, arriving at 

 Gravesend on September 11th. She was sold to the Spanish Government 

 in the following year, and was the first war steamer possessed by the 

 Spaniards. 



Steamships now rapidl}" increased in numbers and size, culminating 

 in the " Great Eastern," moi-e than one-eighth of a mile long and having a 

 beam of 83 feet and a burden of 19,000 tons. The " Great Eastern " did 

 not prove a commercial success, and, after running for a few years and 

 having cost more than a million pounds sterling, she was sold for £16,000, 

 and was broken up for scrap iron, much of which has been distributed 

 throughout Canada in the form of nails. In the grand conception of the 

 " Great Eastern " the engineer, Brunei, seems to have been just thirty-six 



