296 M. Arago's Biographical Memoir of James Watt. 



to the ingenuity of Watt, be reared at will, without difficulty 

 and without incumbrance, in the centre of towns, and in every 

 story of a building. The intensity of these powers will be 

 regulated by the mechanic's will, and will not depend, as 

 heretofore, upon the most unsteady of natural causes, — atmo- 

 spheric influence. The different branches of each manufacture 

 may be united in a common enclosure, and even under the 

 same roof. The productions of industry, whilst they are thus 

 improved in quality, will be diminished in price. Population, 

 well fed, well clad, and comfortably lodged, will increase with 

 rapidity, — it will cover with elegant dwellings every region, 

 even those districts which have been justly styled the Steppes 

 of Europe, and which the barrenness of ages seems for ever 

 to have condemned to remain the exclusive domain of the f era; 

 naturce. In a few years insignificant hamlets will become 

 important cities ; and, in a short while, such towns as Birming- 

 ham, where, a few years since, one could scarcely count thirty 

 streets, will take their place among the largest, most beautiful, 

 and I'ichest towns of a powerful kingdom. 



Transferred to our ships, the steam-engine will replace an 

 hundredfold, the efforts of the triple and quadruple banks 

 of rowers, from whom our fathers required an extent and 

 kind of labour, ranked among the punishments of the great- 

 est criminals. With the help of a few bushels of coals Man 

 will overcome the elements, and will make light of calms, con- 

 trary winds, and even storms. Transport will become much 

 more rapid, — the time of the arrival of the steam- vessel will 

 be as regular as that of our public coaches ; and we shall no 

 longer have occasion to remain on the coast for weeks, or 

 even months, the heart a prey to cruel anxiety, watching, with 

 anxious eye on the distant horizon, for the uncertain traces of 

 the vessel which is to restore to us a father or a mother, a 

 brother or a friend. In fine, the steam-engine, conveying in 

 its train thousands of travellers, will run, upon railroads, more 

 swiftly than the best race-horse, loaded only with its dimi- 

 nutive jockey. 



Tliis, gentlemen, is a very abridged sketch of the benefits 

 bequeathed to the world by the machine of which Papin sup- 

 plied the germ in his writings, and which, after so many in- 



