248 Remarks on the History of Inventions. 



Water had been similarly applied at least as early as the days of Lu- 

 cretius, who has left the following verse ; — 



" Ut fluvios versare rotas atque haustra videinus." 



Modern science has, in Brainah's ingenious application of the principle of 

 the hydraulic paradox to the construction of a press of truly gigantic 

 powers, exhibited the most striking instance of the employment of water 

 as a mechanical power. 



The tremendous energies of steam as a moving power may be also re- 

 garded as a pure creation of science. 



Nor is it at all improbable that the ulterior progress of science may 

 present us with other new powers of equal or even superior eflScacy. The 

 vast expansive forces of the condensed gases has thus been suggested by 

 Babbagc ; but we may perhaps smile, when we find him expatiating on the 

 superior facilities which Iceland, " where Hecla flames amidst eternal 

 snows," possesses for the manufacture of such products ; and speculatiug 

 on the probability of this ultima Thule hereafter becoming a great commer- 

 cial nation, its principal article of export being power. 



If I miglit venture to indulge in the same sort of bold conjectures, 1 

 would suggest the probability that hereafter we may be able to employ the 

 repulsive force of electricity as a power of still more formidable energy. 

 Should any discoveries enable us to develope this principle on a larger scale, 

 and by more oeconomical methods, than the machines now used, we may 

 literally command the force of lightning. 



TRANSLATION FROM THE ARABIC. 



[It is very generally supposed, that eastern literature has never attained 

 that stage of maturity, in which men write real prose ; in which good sense 

 predominates over ornament, and mere imagination is sobered by taste. 

 It is by the flowery rhodomontade of Persian authors, or the ridiculous 

 pomp of Chinese diplomacy, that we are generally possessed with this 

 opinion. But the Arab historians and geographers, as well as their writers 

 on science, are of quite an opposite class ; writing in a style, not only 

 simple, but sometimes so naked, unadorned, and primitive, that we can 

 compare it only with that of the historical books of tlie Jewish and Christ- 

 ian scriptures. It is not, however, solely as a specimen of Arabic style, 

 that we append from Jemal Ed Din the reign of an Egyptian Khalif. The 

 facts narrated will, we doubt not, be amusing to some, incredible to others: 

 while to those who see no ground to disbelieve the naked outline of the 

 story, there will be instruction in the simplicity of the author's mind. Of 

 the merit of stigmatising us as Christians with badges of dishonour, he 

 evidently entertained no doubt : the submission of a subject people to the 

 capricious rule of a madman, who seemed bent on starving them, must have 



