300 M. Arago on Machinery considered in Belation 



count upon your fingers, if you can, the number of worlouen, 

 whose employment would have been necessary, to convey to 

 the stone-yards of the capital, the stones which the builders 

 have required for five centuries, and you will obtain a prodi- 

 gious result; and however little satisfied you may be with 

 novel ideas, yet you may rejoice to your heart's content upon 

 the delight which such a state of things would create among 

 the day labourers ! 



The capital of a powerful kingdom, not very distant from 

 France, is traversed by a majestic river, which even ships of 

 war ascend in full sail. Innumerable canals in all directions 

 intersect the surrounding country, and transport, at little ex- 

 pense, packages of the largest bulk. A complete net-work of 

 excellent roads, most admirably kept, leads to the most distant 

 pai-ts of the country. In addition to these great gifts of nature 

 and of art, the capital enjoys, what every one must now call 

 an advantage of which Paris is deprived, for the stone-quarries 

 essential to building are not in its vicinity, but are found only 

 at a distance. Here, then, is the Utopia of the new econo- 

 mists realized. They may now calculate the hundreds of 

 thousands, nay, the millions of quarrymen, boatmen, carters, 

 and stone-cutters, who must unceasingly be occupied in raising, 

 transporting, and preparing all the variety of stones which 

 are required in the construction of the immense number of 

 buildings, which are every year added to this great metro- 

 polis. But stop ! they may spare their pains, for it happens that 

 in this city — as it would happen in Paris, deprived of its rich 

 quarries — that stone being very expensive, is net used, and 

 brick is everywhere substituted in its place. 



Thousands of workmen every day execute at the surface and 

 in the bowels of the earth prodigious labours, which it would 

 be necessary totally to abandon, if certain machines were re- 

 linquished. One or two examples will sufiice to make this 

 truth sufl&ciently apparent. The daily removal of the water 

 which rises in the galleries of the Cornish mines requires a 

 power of fifty thousand horses, or of three hundred thousand 

 men. I ask if the wages of three hundred thousand workmen 

 would not absorb all the profits which the mining operations 

 might produce ? But the question of wages and profits may 



