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THE STEAM-ENGINE. 



But if the contrivances by which this vast power is brought to bear on the 

 arts and manufactures, be rendered attractive by their great mechanical beauty, 

 how much more imposing will the subject become when the effects which the 

 steam-engine has produced upon the well-being of the human race are consid- 

 ered ! It has penetrated the crust of the earth, and drawn from beneath it 

 boundless treasures of mineral wealth, which, without its aid, would have 

 been rendered inaccessible ; it has drawn up, in measureless quantity, the fuel 

 on which its own life and activity depend ; it has relieved men from their most 

 slavish toils, and reduced labor in a great degree to light and easy superin- 

 tendence. To enumerate its present effects, would be to count almost every 

 comfort and every luxury of life. It has increased the sum of human happi- 

 ness, not only by calling new pleasures into existence, but by so cheapening 

 former enjoyments as to render them attainable by those who before could 

 never have hoped to share them : the surface of the land, and the face of the 

 waters, are traversed with equal facility by its power ; and by thus stimulating 

 and facilitating the intercourse of nation with nation, and the commerce of 

 people with people, it has knit together remote countries by bonds of amity 

 not likely to be broken. Streams of knowledge and information are kept flow- 

 ing between distant centres of population, those more advanced diffusing civi- 

 lization and improvement among those that are more backward. The press 

 itself, to which mankind owes in so large a degree the rapidity of their im- 

 provement in modern times, has had its power and influence increased in a 

 manifold ratio by its union with the steam-engine. It is thus that literature is 

 cheapened, and, by being cheapened, diffused ; it' is thus that reason has taken 

 the place of force, and the pen has superseded the sword ; it is thus that war 

 has almost ceased upon the earth, and that the differences which inevitably 

 arise between people and people are for the most part adjusted by peaceful 

 negotiation. 



The steam-engine is a mechanical contrivance, by which coal, wood, or 

 other fuel, is rendered capable of executing any kind of labor. Coals are by 

 it made to spin, weave, dye, print, and dress silks, cottons, woollens, and other 

 cloths ; to make paper, and print books upon it when made ; to convert corn 

 into flour ; to express oil from the olive, and wine from the grape ; to draw up 

 metal from the bowels of the earth ; to pound and smelt it, to melt and mould 

 it ; to forge it ; to roll it, and to fashion it into every desirable form ; to trans- 

 port these manifold products of its own labor to the doors of those for whose 

 convenience they are produced ; to carry persons and goods over the waters 

 of rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans, in opposition alike to the natural difficulties 

 of wind and water ; to carry the wind-bound ship out of port ; to place her on 

 the open deep ready to commence her voyage ; to throw its arms around the 

 ship-of-war, and place her side by side with the enemy ; to transport over the 

 surface of the deep persons and information, from town to town, and from 

 country to country, with a speed as much exceeding that of the ordinary wind, 

 as the ordinary wind exceeds that of a common pedestrian. 



Such are the virtues, such the powers, which the steam-engine has con- 

 ferred upon coals. The means of calling these powers into activity are sup- 

 plied by a substance which nature has happily provided in unbounded quantity 

 in every part of the earth ; and though it has no price, it has inestimable value : 

 this substance is water. 



A pint of water may be evaporated by two ounces of coals. In its evapo- 

 ration it swells into two hundred and sixteen gallons of steam, with a me- 

 chanical force sufficient to raise a weight of thirty-seven tons a "foot high. 

 The steam thus produced has a pressure equal to that of common •atmospheric 

 air ; and by allowing it to expand, by virtue of its elasticity, a further mechani- 



