THE PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY AND SCIENCE. I7l 



the heavens, or the last shot to hoom along the field, the exulting cry- 

 is echoed thousands of miles away, and, like a giant echo, the deep- 

 mouthed cannon ope their throats to tell the victory that is won." 

 From the bed where a fond mother languishes, or where the suffering 

 child pines for the green meadows, the blue skies, and crystal foun- 

 tains of its home ; ere the feebly-expressed wish has died upon the 

 pallid lips of the stricken one, the summons has winged to the loved 

 listeners afar, and from the responding heart comes back the cheering 

 words, that ere another hour be past, those whom the dying one holds 

 dear will be seated by the bedside. The dweller in the lone island of 

 the sea, who finds a sweet home where grasses wave and wild birds 

 sweep on tireless wing — he, when he wanders on the surgy shore, 

 sees the tokens of storm booming on the horizon's verge, and hears the 

 first " sugh" of the hurricane as it gathers up its forces for the fight. 

 He has a friend now sailing from a distant port to visit him in his 

 ocean home, and make exchanges of the produce of their respective 

 lands. With a touch of the finger lighter than the sweep of the sum- 

 mer air, he can tell of the storm now brooding on the deep, and by 

 the swift messenger of an electric wire outspeed the wind itself and 

 save a noble ship from wreck and a hundred hearts from a briny grave. 

 Thus the magic messenger of silence speaks in tones that cannot be 

 misunderstood, conveying individual thoughts and feelings, detailing 

 the acts of senators and the decrees of crowns, whispering the words 

 of love and goodwill to every nation under God's sun, and binding 

 them all together in a true and holy brotherhood. Thus it is that 

 miles and leagues of distance vanish, and the men of London whisper 

 in the ears of those in Paris, and give momentary greetings to the 

 dwellers in Boston or New York. 



No previous era in the world has exhibited so glorious a spectacle 

 of man conquering brute matter, and rendering its most obdurate ele- 

 ments obedient to his desires. For a penny a mile, the poor man may 

 be winged by the Pegasus of iron into the green fields, and join with 

 nature in her carnival of beauty. For a penny a mile, he may travel 

 where he will with greater speed than fifty years ago could have been 

 accomplished by the bloodhorses of the wealthy of the land. His 

 grandfather went in dread of footpads and highwaymen over ruts and 

 through quagmires, where now he whisks at the rate of a mile a minute 

 over roads of polished steel. The men who dwelt in the land before the 

 nineteenth century dawned, or the knell of the eighteenth had been 



